President Obama spoke Friday in the Rose Garden, surrounded by his team of economic advisors. (PHOTO CREDIT:Shawna Shepherd/CNN)
Washington (CNN) – President Barack Obama went on the offensive on the politically critical issue of job creation Friday, promising to lay out a broad package of ideas next week and slamming Senate Republicans for blocking passage of his administration's small business aid legislation.
Obama renewed his call for the languishing bill in the wake of Friday's release of new unemployment figures. The jobless rate, according to the Labor Department, rose from 9.5 to 9.6 percent in August.
The economy lost a total of 54,000 jobs last month. Most of the losses, however, came from the public sector, as the government cut 114,000 temporary census workers. Private businesses added 67,000 jobs to their payrolls.
August was the eighth straight month that businesses added jobs, following nearly two straight years of job losses. So far this year businesses have added 763,000 workers to payrolls.
"That's positive news," Obama declared at the White House, flanked by his top economic advisers. It "reflects steps we've already taken to break the back of this recession."
From CNN Politics
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Too little, too late, too unrealistic, you lost your charm Mr. President, and by now we got used to you not delivering!
Part of that initiative probably means constructing more golf courses for him to polish his game.
Well, it's not much. But, a Hell of a lot better than 8 years of Republicans ruining the entire world with their nonsense.
VOTE GREEN PARTY!!
The President is trying to fix the mess the last administration left us in, even without the support of the American Taliban party.
SLAM the GOP!
The GOP are the major reason we're in this mess in the first place. They need to be slammed.
Rescinding all H1-B visas would be a good start. There are plenty of qualified Americans who can fill those jobs, but capitalists have decided that cheap labor is better for their short-term profits than well paid people who can afford to buy their services in the long run. They've got it bass ackwards. Bill Gates is a prime example. One of the richest men in the world. Also the highest number of H1-B employees. Have a nice day!
Forget it Mr. President.
The GOP is proud of their 'Party of NO!!!' strategy...
It's only two months before the elections...
There's not a chance for them to do such a thing as help the middle class.
Your plan so far has worked so well, i am sure this will be just as successful! God help us all!
President Obama and the Democrats may not have been able to fix the economic mess left by the GOP as fast as our instant gratification nation wants (an economic meltdown many years in the making is not going to "fixed" in less than two years especially when the problems are deep seated) but they continue to work hard on the problem and are continuously offering ideas. The GOP, on the other hand has been the party of NO. Saying NO to any ideas that may help and offering NO new ideas of their own. "Tax cuts solve everything" has been disproven time and again. "No regulations" brings you oil spills and contaminated eggs. All the GOP wants to do is take care of the to 2% of wealthiest Americans by making sure their Bush tax cuts are extended (and the GOP sure doesn't care about how much it costs when tax cuts for the rich is the issue). Middle America needs investment in OUR future, not just more investment in the future of the rich when it has been proven that it DOES NOT "trickle down." I will take the Democrats efforts and ideas over the GOP's failed policies and continued plan to invest only in the very wealthy.
This just proves the corporate scumbags and Wall street dont like the American working people.
Obama, when you loose over 2.5 million jobs and only add 65,000 your recovery strategy is not working. That is why your approval ratings are in the tank. How is the Hope and change working out for all of you?
Let's face it, Relublicans want the economy to fail so they can can use it as a means to get elected. They don't care about this country and all lhey are interested in is power. Hopefully, the American people will remember whose ideas and policies caused this mess and not give these dolts another chance.
time for repubs to take off their hoods and vote for the good of the country for a change give small business a fighting chance or are you afraid it might do some good and influence some elections. what a piece of crap politicians are.
It does not matter what the President does, if it will help the economy the REPUKS will fillerbuster it.
The republicans are quick to jump on the wagen about the unemployment rate, just – once again – to bring down Obama. If they care so much about unemployment, then lets give the small community banks the loan to help the unemployed.
GOP still playing politics with the well-being of Americans. All the greed with hand on heart, ehh boys?
Time Is Way Overdue To Get Tough With The GOP, This November Is Serious! From Their (Politically Driven) Willingness To Attack (Destruction) And Obstruction Antics Have Gone Too Far Unchallenged By You Mr. President At Times And By Your Party (The People Who Should Have Your Back, Not The Senators Landrieu, Nelson, Lincoln Sell Outs) Too Often! They Have Also Gone Unchallenged By Some In The Media (And Its Handpicked Mouthpieces) As Well Who Wastes No Opportunity To Play Both Ends Against The Middle (Independents).
Obama is a true believer in the relegion of liberalism. Sadly, the best he could do to encourage economic growth is reject his own liberal big-government – the government is the answer – policies. The best we can do as a nation is to reject what has consistently failed throughout history – totalitarian government control. It always ends poortly, and we should expect nothing different.
About time both the parties worked together to solve the economy problems. It is a sad situation when one of the parties do not want to go ahead and help the country until it comes into power. This plays all the time and there is no end to the despair for the unemployed Americans.
We the people put you there to improve the condition of the electorate, if you cannot do your job then please do not seek the office.
Why isn't Congress pursuing the pay cut proposal by Arizona Representative, Ann Kirkpatrick? Last March, U.S. Rep. Kirkpatrick sponsored legislation to cut congressional salaries a modest 5%, saying it was high time that Congress shared the pain with the rest of America. As U.S. workers have suffered layoffs, pay cuts and furloughs over the past two years, Congress has actually been spending more money than ever. In fact, if it hadn’t been for another bill that Kirkpatrick supported, Kirkpatrick and her colleagues in the U.S. legislature would have gotten automatic pay raises this year, as they did in 2008 and 2009.
The GOP deserves to be slammed! Go for it Mr. President!
Just keep blaming other people Mr. President. You haven't taken responsibility since you took office. Why would anybody expect you to now. What a shame. In a time when we need true leader we have a immature President in way over his head. We need Hillary Clinton's experience to get out of this. I pray she runs.
This is good news, but still needs the job market to continue to grow more and faster.......just think how much faster it could grow if the Repbulicans would start doing their job and help instead of fighting against the growth of American jobs......if you think for one minute that the republicans have any better ideas and can get this economy growing any faster you have another thing coming.......all they can do is put this President down so they can gain votes for November they aren't thinking about you and me or the job market or the economy they are thinking about their votes.....and for that reason I will continue to vote and suppot the Democrats.......don't let this country go back to where we were before 2008.....you wanted Change you have to give it time and you have to give this President a Chance......he still has 2 more years, do you want the next two years to continue with this Party of NO fighting him......putting them in the majority in November will only continue this recession and hurt you and hurt me and hurt America.
Well over a year ago, the President gace a speech about the change we needed in the way we live in America.
It included less waste, saving money paying for things with cash not credit and liveing for tomoorw, not the moment.
I wish he would give that speech again.
As we save more, cut back on extravigances and live within our means, obviously less goods and service will be needed.
This will lead to unemployment. it is the reson we still have the high unemployments number along with business sitting on cash and not spending. But why should they? We need less, are living on less and therefore they don't have anything to spend money on.
The world changed in the early 1900's again in the 20's and 30's. then came the 50's and 60's and then the 80's. A new global economy is as big as the industrial revolution, we need to learn to adjust.
"August was the eighth straight month that businesses added jobs, following nearly two straight years of job losses. So far this year businesses have added 763,000 workers to payrolls"
My prediction is that the jobs outlook for the country is finally starting to gain some upward momentum and November is NOT going to be the bloodbath for Democrats that the Party of NO is counting on. The Dems will most likely lose some seats, but sanity WILL prevail and the Party of NO which hates America will NOT be in control of this great country's destiny again for a long, long time!
The number of jobs added this year is about equal to the number of jobs lost the month before President Obama took office. With the repugs blocking every effort to improve the economy, that's not bad.
We could be recovering as well as Germany, for example. Even with the expense of their socialized medicine, and the government backing solar energy and high-speed rail, they are still back to the level of employment before the recent crash. As any intelligent group knows, moving forward is the only choice.
Get rid of the repugs.
Once again, hard facts vis-a-vis the economy and jobs picture paint a picture of complete and utter failure of Obama's economic policies.
Once again, Obama plays the blame game.
Once again, Obama supporters will fall in line like the good little sheep they are.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
The Grand Obstructionist Party is holding up a small business bill in the Senate. Then we have Eric Cantor talking about the White House is causing uncertainty? It's your party blocking economic growth. Such hypocrites!
If you're to dumb to see that the GOP,is hoping to mix the message,the government is getting smaller,while small business is growing I'm seeing it all over the country.As a business owner myself things are turn around.The demand for goods and service are rising.If you want proof check the volume of truck traffic on your commute.
Let me understand this. The unemployment rate went up, the country lost 54,000 jobs, the deficit continues to climb and this is considered "positive news"? Obama is as lost as a blind virgin in a strip club. Oh and you've got to love the expression on Geithner's face.
This guy has a line of b.s. a mile long,The people are so tired of the lies and deceit ,tired of blaming the gop for his failures, This economy has gotten worse since he has been in office,the deficit has grown ,the unemployment has grown,more homes have been foreclosed , more banks have closed,more business have gone bankrupt,he passed a taxpayer funded, stimulus bill that went to the unions for his reelection campaign. His socialistic agenda is what is tanking this country. the only way to get this country back to prosparity is to remove obama pelosi,biden,clinton reid,holder, and the socialist people behind the seens
Repugs will make much of the 54,000 jobs lost last month, ignoring the more important number: 67,000 private businesses jobs added. As to the public sector jobs cut, the census jobs were not counted by the repugs when they were added, so why should they be counted when they went away.
If you're to dumb to see that the GOP,is hoping to mix the message,the government is getting smaller,while small business is growing I'm seeing it all over the country.As a business owner myself things are turn around.The demand for goods and service are rising.If you want proof check the volume of truck traffic on your commute.If you sit behind a desk you'll never really know.
Thank you Mr. President.. The Party of NO has said they want you to fail and let us prove them wrong. If they keep up this type of anti American they could be the ones to fail in the end. Let us not give JOHN THE JANITOR (Boehner) a chance to furnish his new office.
Republicans and demarcates doesn’t get it .they don’t know the depth of the recession
Why the regressive obstructionists won't do anything to improve the economy right now. They have an election to win and need the economy to be in the crapper – even if they caused it and continue to block anything that might improve it!
And by god they are not gonna do anything that might make the hard-working dems appear to be helping the middle class and small businesses.
But that's OK, because Americans are smart enough to elect positive-thinking people with a plan over nay-sayers and fear mongers who don't have one. And criticize, obstruct, delay, filibuster and giving tax cuts to the filthy rich IS NOT A PLAN! It's they way those "good chrizz-gin conservative" re-theug-lie-cants do things, in or out of power....
Cry baby cry!! You ignored Republican ideas and input for 19 months and now you need them because you can not get the two Republican libs from Maine to join you.. Well too bad! We can wait another two months for Repups to crush the Dems and than we can make some sound policy that actually creates jobs rather than paying back unions and Dem supporters!!! What is two more months when you have ignored small business and job creation over the last 19 months while pushing your far left agenda...I can not wait for November!!!!!!
Again, NO ideas from the Republicans, just NO. The fact that CNN is quoting Canter and Steele is hilarious. These two idiots couldn't come up with a new idea if their lives depended on it! But, they are the first ones to criticize the Obama administration that is at least trying to do something that doesn't give more tax breaks to the wealthiest Americans to have them out source more American jobs overseas and send their profits off shore.
I appreciate the hard work the president is doing to improve the lives of the american people. Some just cannot identify with the effort.
A political party that puts their win at any cost over the survival of us or our country is a party that should cease to exist.
The republicans have undying love and support for Wall St and the rich
and sacrifice the American people for their priority. The republicans have obstructed anything and everything that help to get our country out of the diasters they created because they do not want our country to improve, especially before an election.
They have spent 20 months of propaganda, lies, distortions, promoting fear with no workable, acceptable, credible ideas of their own except their politics as usual.
America, we cannot allow a party that brought our country to it's knees, is totally irresponsible and refuses to put us and our country first back in office to create additional diasters.
Stupid stupid man.
We are sick of your BS. SUre, you want to do something NOW. We have been telling you forever your going down the WRONG path.
What happened to the last stimulous money???? THought a bunch of it has been paid bacK/ Lend it..........
Socialist, crying whiner. Your game is done and your days as president are numbered.
I do however want to thank you for ONE thing. You made real Americans wake up and start paying attention to you politicians again. The bad news now is that we don't like ANY OF YOU
The only possible good news that could come out of dc would be the o-hole saying: "I had no idea, growing up in my hippy/lib utopian delusion world the way I did, that I was so out of touch with where I live or what 'American' means, that I'm resigning so someone who's actually qualified to do my job can do it." He has already proven himself unqualified, incompetent, and irrelevant. He can kiss my ass...
Please keep on fighting for the American People Mr. President. Put an end to GOP obstruction.
I think the REPUKES need to go back to whatever planet they came from....
If I could caption that photo, TurboTax Timmy would be saying "Hmmmm... I wonder if he ACTUALLY believes the junk he's peddling?"
The tempory sensus jobs is over now. Big government is wining down so the republicans and tea party folks should be jumping for joy since theyve been fighting this president for 17 month. The sector job which brings money to the economy is booming for the past 8 month. This is hard to comprehend since we were losing nearly a million jobs a month just 18 month ago. How many president in history could do that.
No one hates small business like big business, and the Republican Party is the party of big business.
Well it only took almost a trillion dollars in stimulus money and over 3 million jobs for these "too intelligent to fail" politicians (who think they are businessmen) to finally figure out that small businesses might be the key here. And they'll probabably still screw it up. OK LISTEN UP – if there is not increased DEMAND, businesses will not hire just because they get a tax break for hiring. In addition, if you give them tax breaks for other areas (R&D), they will not hire until the DEMAND increases. GET IT. And I only had two semesters of Economics over 40 years ago.
My Dear Americans:
Please, please please put your contry first instead of your party–GOP.
You may not like him for reasons beyond logiscs but Obama was democratically "elected" by majority of us. He is no David Copperfield and he can't make the huge and misarably sick elephant (left by Bush) disapear in a couple of years. There is only one president at a time, even if you didn't vote for him, he IS our one and only president–NOW. Let give him a chance.
Republicans slam the notion of Recovery Summer.
Gross Domestic Product went from MINUS 6.8% in the forth quarter of 08 (w's last full quarter) to 5% gain in the forth quarter of 09, tapering off to 1.6% recently
Job growth went from 750,000 JOBS LOST per month before President Obama took office to positive job gains, tapering off when the stimulus spending tapered off but still continuous job growth in the private sector
I guess the idiots Cantor and Steele want to return to the pre-Obama era, but not me. We are in a (slow) recovery in spite of the repugs.
CNN recently had an article how a small business can send a job to India for $14 an hour. Sounded pretty good if your the owner of a small business. But then I hear our wonderful government say that they want to create a bill to help small businesses, so hiring will pick up.....
Hiring will pick up where – in India???? Why is my tax money going to help small businesses when they, as well as their big brother corporate America, are sending jobs off shore???
Small business, Big business and the government could care less about Americans looking for work!!!!!! They just want us to buy their garbage!!!!
Screw small business! Screw big business! and most important – SCREW OUR GOVERNMENT!!! They are the cause of the despair in America!
screw america !!!
Of course it's all positive news in Odumbos little world.
Always blaming someone else is also in Odumbos world, he lives for this. He see's himself as perfect and anything that doesnt work has to be someone else at fault.
Cry me a river loser. 2010 starts the end of your little dream.
Blame, Blame, Hey BHO. you're just a fool. You don't have a clue how to fix this economy or create jobs. As a small business owner, I don't want your low interest loans, I don't want any loans. I just want Government to stop taxing us to death and get out of our way. The sooner you listen to business people who know how to create jobs, the sooner we'll get out of this mess. Face it! You don't know what you're doing.
I hate to see what happens in a "Non-Recovery Summer".
Seems he's on the "offensive" a lot these days !!
Pass the small business bill NOW! It doesn't add to the deficit and it will allow small business owners to expand their companies...hiring more employees and buying large equipment (that helps other companies hire). WHAT EXACTLY IS THE HOLD UP? Oh, the economy can't recover before the Nov. elections or the GOP may not win as many seats...oh, now I understand the reason for all the lying and obstructionist behavior.
Country first, right?
What a nice change of pace (not), the POTUS is calling for bipartisanship while being very partisan.
So what's new? Obama has consistently "slammed the GOP". It's pretty pathetic. He can't talk about all the good he has done for this country (because he hasn't!) so he blames his inept leadership on the other party. Let's not forget – the Dems have held the majority in congress for almost 4 years. Um, so, who's to blame?
thank GOD our country is adding jobs not losing them. the way i look at it is that it is beats losing 600 thousand jobs every month under bush. i don't quite get the republicans. first they complain president obama is doing too much. then they complain he is not doing enough. go figure. as a independent voter i am willing to give our president 8 yrs to turn around the mess left him by bush and the GOP
if things are not noticably better when presidnt obama's terms ends then i can always vote for someone else. .
Mr President
Can you hold off on the Billion dollar bailout for KABUL BANK and hire/replace those in the Treasury Department?
The Treasury Department is now asking the US taxpayers to bail out KABUL BANK!
"If the Treasury Department will guarantee that everyone will get their money, maybe that will work," said Karzai, who holds 7 percent of the bank's shares, making him the third-biggest shareholder. Karzai, who spends most of his time in Dubai – where he lives in a waterfront villa paid for by Kabul Bank – rushed to Kabul on Wednesday to join efforts to salvage the bank"
Blame someone else for their failures, that Obummer for ya!
Has Eric Cantor "come out of the closet" yet?
only in ObozoWorld can the unemployment rate going up be "positive?
Hey Mr. President....you want small business to grow?....
then don't tax hard-working successful people who make more than $250,000 per household.... don't know if you can put 2 and 2 together .... but these are the people who OWN small businesses....
just an FYI for ya...... do what you will with that little nugget of info....
Initiatives means more give aways and investments means increase taxes from the current DC crowd. He tells people what he is going to do except he does it in code. When he was campaigning he said he was going to transform America and look where he is taking us. Europe is returning to capticalism and he is taking us the other way.
obama is the next hoover,,,,we need jobs ,, no new taxes,,,,remember the buck stops with you.. this is pathedic the job market,,,
Riddle me this GOP – how can the economic sky be falling while the stock market is rising? How many months have we had private sector jobs growth? Just how many private sector jobs did we bleed monthly during 2007 and 2008? Where was the stock market on closing day Jan. 19, 2009? Where is it today? Anyone who votes republican in November must have selective memory loss.
Where is the jobs the STIMILUS package was suppposed to provide????
The tempory sensus jobs is over now. Big government is winding down so the republicans and tea party folks should be jumping for joy since theyve been fighting this president for 17 month about big government taking the money out of the economy. this what you get when you cut programs . The private sector job which brings money to the economy is booming for the past 8 month. This is hard to comprehend since we were losing nearly a million jobs a month just 18 month ago. How many president in history could do that. Keep getting us private sector jobs obama and dont worry about the republicans trying to scare these people into not spending their money to bring this economy down.
Please, no, Mr. President. This country can't afford another one of your "initiatives".
Obama can give all the speeches he wants, but propaganda won't fix our economy - Socialism and a free market don't mix!
What's the answer? For starters ... Abolish the income tax and generate federal revenue fairly via a national sales tax - 50% of citizens don't pay income tax now, that's not right! Scrutinize and eliminate all the excessive red tape that small businesses have to weed through in their day-to-day operations. Cut the federal government back down to its original size and scope as established by the U.S. Constitution - it won't be easy, but neither would a bankrupt country!
Wake up people! Stop the "change" to Socialism. Stop Obama and the Democrats.
In November, vote conservative, vote Republican.
Talk about a misleading article! You say we lost jobs, but the jobs lost are only temporary census worker jobs. What a cheap way to get users to read your news, just sensationalize the headlines. Buried in the article is that the private sector created 74,000+ jobs...what I want to know is for the 763,000 jobs created this year, how many were lost in the past 2 years?
"Obama promises new jobs initiatives" LMFAO!!!
The bill is paid for.
The Republicans call it a "tax hike".
It closes a loophole that has allowed companies to avoid paying taxes on money earned in the US by hiding it in overseas accounts.
So, once again, the Republicans prove they will do ANYTHING, even keep the American people in a recession, to advance thier own political agenda.
They are the most anti-American group I have ever seen. Ol' Ronnie Ray-guns would not recognize what the Republican party has become.
I have always been an Independant, but no more. I will NEVER vote Republican again. They disgrace great Republicans who have worked, fought and died for this great nation.
Shame be on them.
Our little community organizer is always blaming someone else. His track record is still going strong. His economic policies have failed and he needs to accept that.
Interesting that the Senate and House are controlled by the Democratic party – so how are the Republicans holding up his process?
More temporary jobs?
Because I just listened to lib NPR and they were detailing how corporations are learning to do things more efficiently and are doing well but not hiring. So I am wondering if he is just creating more temp jobs again.
Did you notice how Tim Geithner looks? He must not be very happy to come back breaking up his vacation plans, where as "The One" takes his vacation.
The company I work for (Fortune 500) just adverstised for 2 positions for assistant managers (decent paying desk jobs with all the benes). We went through a large on-line job search for 2 weeks and had 62 applicants and NOT ONE was currently unemployed. Totally unexpected based on the news.
We are in a mid Atlantic state too. Not the boonies.
Very strange.
May God bless you Mr President, and i bind up every warefare spirit that rise up against you i bind them up in the name of Jesus Christ,
Lies, lies, lies. Obama mouths the words, Geithner is trying to figure out how to avoid paying his taxes. The administration as ususal.
Mr. President,
Carry on, you are on right track, ask those Gopers (Fear mongers and war mongers) if thy haveany better solution to create JOBS and improve the economy other than tax cut for the 2% rich. You will have to explain in simple tone to some of those un educated who are always ready for all free bee from washington should not support GOPERS.............Good luck.
If the GOP isn't going to help fix the mess they made they should just get out of the way, even the top GOP economists publicy stated that it would take years if not decades to undo the damage done by the GOP's bank bailouts in 2008, stop trying to rewrite the past and think of the people rather than your political careers.
If there is any doubt that these Government stimulus programs have a positive benefit just look at what happened to the housing sector when the first time home buyers credit program ended…it dropped 25%. Although these programs have not pushed the economy into full recovery they have prevented a full-on Depression which is a success in itself.