Poor Reports Indicate Need for New Jobs Bills

Statement

If the Administration's predictions had come true, unemployment would be less than six percent right now thanks to the 2009 stimulus. Unfortunately, this overly optimistic prognosis has proved misleading as the monthly jobs reports continue to remain stagnant.

It is bad enough that the June jobs report revealed another disappointing month on the road to economic recovery. The economy added just 80,000 jobs, which was not enough to decrease our 8.2 percent unemployment rate.

The 8.2 percent unemployment rate means that June marked the forty-first consecutive month that unemployment has been at least eight percent. The last time this happened, the country was in the throes of the Great Depression.

These poor results have happened despite of the President's policies. Each month the job market continues to stall and even slows, it becomes clearer and clearer that the $831 billion stimulus plan was not the solution to our economic problems.

We need a new direction. The House has already passed nearly thirty jobs bills that the Senate and the President continue to ignore. This summer, the House will focus on alleviating tax and regulatory burdens, two of the primary issues hampering job creators. First up is repeal of the President's health care law, which we will vote on July 11th. Given the recent Supreme Court decision, twenty-one tax increases from the law totaling at least $800 billion remain in place. Officials have already issued more than 13,000 pages of regulations related to the law.

The House will also take up measures to protect small businesses from stifling regulations. The Regulatory Freeze Act (H.R. 4078) imposes a moratorium on any new regulation, except for health and emergency purposes, when unemployment is above six percent.

Then there is the critical effort to "stop the tax hike." The House will vote to prevent a looming $4.3 trillion tax increase set to take effect January 1, 2013. This tax hike would hit everyone and everything from middle class families -- a family of four earning $50,000 could pay almost $2,200 in higher taxes -- to family farms and job creators through higher taxes on income, estates, capital gains and qualified dividends.

We have already seen the ineffectiveness of the President's policies on America's job growth. Now it is time to see how much better off the country would be with the House's plan for job creators.

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