Associated Press:Republicans concerned about the Obama administration's big spending on economic stimulus, energy and health care are asking, "Where are the jobs?"
"The president and Democrats in Congress claim this spending binge is necessary to put Americans back to work," House Republican leader John Boehner said Saturday in the Republican radio and Internet address. "They promised unemployment would not rise above 8 percent if their trillion-dollar stimulus was passed.
The administration was wrong, Boehner said. "Unemployment has soared above 9 percent. And now the president admits that unemployment will soon reach double digits.
"After all of this spending, after all of this borrowing from China, the Middle East, our children and our grandchildren, where are the jobs?" he said.
In historic terms, the stimulus passed about a second ago. Boehner's acting like the kid who climbs in the back of the car and yells, "Are we there yet?" as it pulls out of the driveway. Someone run off and find me anyone who promised a recovery by freakin' June. The truth is that then-President-Elect Obama warned in December that "the economy is going to get worse before it gets better."
Maybe Boehner and crew could extend the same courtesy on employment to Obama that they gave to Bush. How about they wait for an employment gain for about the same amount of time that they gave Bush. For the record, Bush's first term record on employment blew. He didn't add a single net job until into his second term. So, to be as patient with Obama as they were with Bush, they'd have to hold their tongues until about 2012. In fact, since Democratic presidential terms tend to have higher employment figures than Republican ones, the odds are good that they won't even have to wait that long.
