Investors fearing the worst after Thursday’s sell-off greeted today’s better-than-expected jobs numbers with relief. Republican presidential candidates? Not so much.
Tim Pawlenty got things started by slamming the latest jobs report, which showed a net increase of 117,000 jobs and unemployment ticking down slightly to 9.1%, as a disaster:
“Today’s dismal jobs report is a far cry from the hope and change that President Obama promised on the campaign trail,” Pawlenty said. “Since the President took office, unemployment has risen 17%, the federal debt has increased 37% and gas prices have doubled. In the last week, the stock market suffered its worst day in years, economic growth was revised down and consumer confidence dropped. Despite these clear and abundant signs that our economy is floundering, President Obama has still failed to deliver a concrete plan to create jobs and promote growth.”
Romney emphasized the bigger picture, focusing more on the last several years of unemployment rather than the details of one month’s job report:
“Today’s unemployment report represents the 30th straight month that the jobless rate has been above 8 percent,” he said. “The administration promised with their $800 billion stimulus that they would keep unemployment below that number. When you see what this president has done to the economy in just three years, you know why America doesn’t want to find out what he can do in eight.”
As for Michele Bachmann, she was surprisingly generous in acknowledging the jobs report was a “slight improvement” in the context of a week of unrelenting bad news. She then let loose with the Moby Dick of jobs report responses, a meandering walk through various half-completed attacks on Obama’s fiscal policy:
“The President created twice as many donors for his campaign as he created jobs in the second quarter,” she said. “This week the President was handed a $2.4 trillion blank check and in return the American people got a mere $21 billion in promised spending cuts, the erosion of their personal savings in the worst stock market drop since 2008, and the promise of higher taxes before the ink had dried on the budget deal. It’s time for the President to admit what the markets, the world, and the American people already know - his trillion dollar stimulus was a failure, the government can’t create jobs, and massive spending kills them.”
Benjy Sarlin
Benjy Sarlin is a reporter for Talking Points Memo and co-writes the campaign blog, TPM2012. He previously reported for The Daily Beast/Newsweek as their Washington Correspondent and covered local politics for the New York Sun.
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