Click here to watch Sen. Barrasso’s speech.
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) spoke on the floor of the U.S. Senate about the two year anniversary of the Obama Administration’s “Recovery Summer.”
Excerpts of his remarks are below:
“The President of the United States earlier today was in Cleveland. He spoke for 54 minutes, and yet he said almost nothing. At least certainly nothing that most of us have not heard before.
“It was two years ago this weekend, that the White House announced the start of what it referred to as the ‘Recovery Summer.’ That campaign effort was an effort to convince the American people that the Obama administration’s policies to create jobs, that the policies were working.
“Now here we are, two years later, and Americans are still waiting for a real recovery. The recovery summer failed to produce results because it was never more than just a cheap slogan.
“It was designed to hide the fact that an unaccountable administration had no real solutions.
“Instead of working to create a healthier economy, President Obama has offered more excuses, more gimmicks, and more empty promises and he continues to say the economy is about to turn the corner.
“This past March, President Obama said things would get better soon. Day by day, he promised, we are restoring the economy from crisis.
“Now after disappointing jobs numbers from May of this year when just 69,000 jobs were created, the President once again promises we will come back stronger.
“You know, it’s a shame that our economy doesn’t run on the President’s rhetoric. Saying that things will get better does not make them better.
“Well, the President’s record speaks for itself. For starters, we all remember early 2009 when the incoming Obama administration told the American people that its stimulus plan would keep unemployment below 8%.
“Instead, we have now had 40 straight months, 40 consecutive months with unemployment over 8%.
“By now, unemployment was supposed to be even much better, because the administration had said that by mid-2012, where we are right now today, their projections were that unemployment would be below 6% if the stimulus bill passed.
“Well, the stimulus bill passed. I voted against it, but instead unemployment has ticked up again in May to 8.2%.
“Last month, one official at the Federal Reserve said it might take four to five additional years to get unemployment down to 6%, which is where the President promised it would be at today.
“The latest jobs report also said that over 23 million Americans are unemployed or are working at less of a job than what they would like.
“President Obama said the other day; he said ‘the private sector is doing fine.’ He went on to say it was only government jobs that were lagging behind.
“Well, I think too many of these over 23 million Americans who are unemployed or underemployed that they would absolutely disagree with this President.
“Under the Obama economy since early 2009, we have lost 433,000 manufacturing jobs, 79,000 real estate jobs have been lost, 160,000 jobs in communications industries like wireless carriers have been lost, and we’ve lost 932,000 construction jobs.
“And these may sound like a lot of just numbers upon numbers, but behind each one of these, behind each one of these statistics is a person.
“A home builder, a phone salesman in the mall, a real estate agent in your community—real people who have lost the private-sector jobs that their families rely on to put food on the table, a roof over their head and to help their kids get through school.
“Many Americans have gotten so discouraged by the Obama economy that they have actually given up looking for work entirely.
“Over five million Americans have been searching for work for more than 27 weeks. That’s over five million Americans who have spent more than half a year looking for work.
“The unemployed now spend an average of nearly 40 weeks looking for work, double the average when President Obama took office.
“So why are the jobs so scarce? Well, it’s because President Obama’s policies have done far too little to help our struggling economy. And in many cases, his policies have actually hurt the economy and made things worse.
“Growth in America’s G.D.P. for the first quarter of 2012 was just 1.9%. That’s nowhere near the level we need for a healthy economy.
“Today there are more than 46 million Americans on food stamps. That’s 14 million more than relied on the program in January of 2009, when President Obama was sworn into office.
“Sadly, the Congressional Budget Office expects the number to go even higher over the next two years. Well, that’s obviously the wrong direction, and it’s the result of bad decisions and bad policies out of the President’s administration.
“Those policies have contributed to the lower wages that we’re seeing, to the higher unemployment that we’re living with, and to more people living in poverty. Those policies are contributing as well to the sagging home markets that threaten to keep millions of American families in dire financial straits for years to come.
“We all know that President Obama faced a difficult economic situation when he took office in 2009. His failed policies have not healed our economy. Higher taxes, more bureaucracy, more borrowing, more wasteful spending by Washington will continue to make things worse.
“Now when you take a look at what’s happening around the world with Europe facing collapse and a global slowdown that threatens our economy, the President seems more concerned with his next election than with actually taking action to make things better.
“The other day that President Obama they said will continue his record smashing fundraising schedule. You know, that’s not the kind of leadership that our economy needs today.
“Republicans are focused on real solutions. Making our tax code simpler, flat perks and fairer for every American. Reducing the debt and the deficit, ending over-regulation—the red tape that is burdensome, expensive and time consuming.
“Putting patients and doctors, their own doctors in control of health care, not creating more Washington bureaucracies. And reducing our dependency on foreign oil and sending so much American money overseas.
“There are 27 jobs bills that have passed the House of Representatives on bipartisan votes. The bills are still today waiting for Senate action.
“The President of the United States remains silent on these bills that would actually get people back to work. He is offering now but scare tactics, excuses, and blame.
“Just imagine where our economy would be today if Democrats had been willing to accept commonsense Republican solutions two years ago. We would actually be in recovery today. We would have seen significant improvements to the economy.
“If Democrats had been willing to work with us instead of giving speeches and pushing more wasteful stimulus spending, millions of more people would be working today across the country.
“If President Obama had been focused on putting people back to work instead of just on keeping his own job, then today – the summer of 2012, the private sector and the American people really would be doing fine.”
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