Obama blames Republicans for job numbers

Barack Obama greeted the new jobs numbers showing that unemployment stood at 8.2 percent for June with 12.7 million Americans out of work by giving the figure scant message in his speech Friday morning in Poland, Ohio and sought to blame Republicans.

Obama suggested that House Republicans were to blame for the sour job numbers and that the only solution would be to end the “stalemate” in Washington.

However, unemployment skyrocketed during the period Democrats had uncontested control in Washington, rising from 8.5 percent in January 2009 and becoming stuck over 9 percent until the Republicans took control of the House in January 2011 .

The president spent little time in his over 20-minute speech discussing the jobs numbers and sought downplay expectations by reminding voters that the nation is recovering from the worst economic crisis in recent memory.

“It’s still tough out there,” Obama said. “Overall businesses have added 4.4 million jobs of the last 28 months … It’s a step on the right direction.”

Obama sought to placate his audience in the key battleground state by pointing out the creation of 500,000 manufacturing jobs in the same time period.

But nowhere did Obama acknowledge the decline in the overall American workforce since he took office. If the number of individuals who have stopped looking for work were included, the unemployment figure would be much higher, possibly above 11 percent, according to figures from the American Enterprise Institute.

“Our mission isn’t to get back to where we were before the crisis,” Obama said, noting his belief that the economy needs to be run “from the bottom up” and not from the “top down.”

Romney, speaking earlier in the morning, called the new jobs numbers “unacceptably high” and said it shows that Obama’s economic policies have failed, noting that 15 percent of Americans are underemployed, working part-time jobs or full-time jobs beneath their skill level.

Forward does not look a lot like forward for the millions and millions of Americans who have not found work,” Romney said, speaking at a campaign stop in New Hampshire. “This kick in the gut has go to end.”

He outlined several principles that he says would guide his economic policies should he win in November, including cracking down on China’s taking away American jobs by cheating in the marketplace, reducing the overall regulatory and tax burdens and replacing Obamacare with a health care system that reduces costs rather than adding burdens.

While Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus said the following in a statement: “”After taking office, President Obama promised he would fix the economy in three years or face a ‘one-term proposition.’ While the president believes ‘the private sector is doing fine,’ the rest of the country knows we are not ‘doing fine’ at all. We cannot afford another term of this president because we cannot endure four more years of painfully high joblessness.”

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