Hensarling on Job Loss Report

WASHINGTON, DC — Congressman Jeb Hensarling, Vice Ranking Member of the House Budget Committee and the top Republican on the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit issued the following statement after the Department of Labor released January’s unemployment data.

Some 20,000 Americans lost their jobs in January; our unemployment rate remains near double digits and 14.8 million of our fellow citizens remain without jobs.  Nearly 3.3 million jobs have been lost since the trillion-dollar so-called stimulus bill was signed last February and the Administration promised that it would hold unemployment to 8%.

This is an economy that by any historical standard should be recovering; it is an economy that wants to recover; but given the looming storm clouds of Obamanomics it is an economy that is struggling to recover.  Unfortunately, instead of signaling a change in the weather I’m afraid the President’s budget signals that the storm clouds of Obamanomics are here to stay.  For the duration of the Administration’s 10-year budget, the deficit never falls below $700 billion, and never falls below 3.6 percent of GDP – a level the Administration’s own budget director has called ‘unsustainable.’ Debt held by the public triples over 10 years, and exceeds 60 percent of GDP as a share of the economy this year – surpassing last year’s 50-year high. Debt continues to rise to consume 77.2 percent of our economy by the end of the budget window.  Couple this budget with the threatened takeover of our health care system, a threatened energy tax and the threatened makeover of our financial system and it is little wonder that job growth is lagging and that private capital and entrepreneurs are sitting on the sidelines – who would take the risk to start or expand a business in this climate?”