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In sum, the economy is wounded and struggling against increasing odds to repair itself. Though it’s not forecast to happen, the risk of sliding back into recession is greater than at any point in over a year.
What’s troubling is that the anemic jobs number and fragility of the overall economy are the result of an utterly broken political process in Washington—specifically, amongst Republicans who dominate the legislative branch.
To the detriment of us all, the GOP has opted out of taking any responsibility for fixing the entirely solvable problems of employment and economic growth.
At every turn, congressional Republicans have stonewalled President Obama on jobs. But if his proposals were fully implemented, our economy would have added 257,000 jobs more in June. That’s three times greater than what we actually added and close to the 300,000-jobs-a-month mark we must hit to put a real dent in joblessness.
Moreover, if Congress had passed Obama’s job program and extended his 2009 initiative to prevent up to a 100 percent of the public sector job losses at the state and local level, unemployment would fall below 7 percent. That’s pre-recession territory. And overall economic growth would be at 4.5 percent. Notably, fixing the public-sector employment crisis would solve much of black joblessness.
The bottom line is that we remain in recession because Republicans have chosen to gum up the political process during a time of national crisis. Washington guru Thomas Mann calls what they’ve done “hostage taking.”
In 2010, Sen. Mitch McConnell told the conservative Heritage Foundation, “The single most impost important thing [Republicans] want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.”
http://colorlines.com/archives/2012/07/honestly_the_jobs_picture_is_bleak_because_the_gop_wants_it_that_way.html
What’s troubling is that the anemic jobs number and fragility of the overall economy are the result of an utterly broken political process in Washington—specifically, amongst Republicans who dominate the legislative branch.
To the detriment of us all, the GOP has opted out of taking any responsibility for fixing the entirely solvable problems of employment and economic growth.
At every turn, congressional Republicans have stonewalled President Obama on jobs. But if his proposals were fully implemented, our economy would have added 257,000 jobs more in June. That’s three times greater than what we actually added and close to the 300,000-jobs-a-month mark we must hit to put a real dent in joblessness.
Moreover, if Congress had passed Obama’s job program and extended his 2009 initiative to prevent up to a 100 percent of the public sector job losses at the state and local level, unemployment would fall below 7 percent. That’s pre-recession territory. And overall economic growth would be at 4.5 percent. Notably, fixing the public-sector employment crisis would solve much of black joblessness.
The bottom line is that we remain in recession because Republicans have chosen to gum up the political process during a time of national crisis. Washington guru Thomas Mann calls what they’ve done “hostage taking.”
In 2010, Sen. Mitch McConnell told the conservative Heritage Foundation, “The single most impost important thing [Republicans] want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.”
http://colorlines.com/archives/2012/07/honestly_the_jobs_picture_is_bleak_because_the_gop_wants_it_that_way.html
