U.S. CONGRESSMAN PAUL C. BROUN, M.D. 10th Congressional District of Georgia

For almost three straight years, more than 12 million Americans have been unemployed. Even worse, almost one million Americans weren’t counted in that figure because they’ve simply given up looking for work. We’ve had three years of a Presidency won on promises of Hope and Change, yet little has changed for the better and far too many have give up hope.

Even with how extreme this jobs crisis remains, President Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid still refuse to work with us. At this point, it is clear that centralized, top-down actions will never create the real growth we need. Their spending plans and increased regulation have utterly failed to help our economy over the last few years. In fact, it appears they have caused entirely new deep wounds. Liberals in Congress and the President pushed through the trillion dollar stimulus, the massive healthcare takeover of Obamacare, and the Dodd-Frank financial boondoggle. Each time, they promised these bills would create jobs.

Trillions of dollars later, where are the jobs? Why are tens of millions of Americans still desperately struggling to provide for their families?

More government intervention is simply not the answer. Instead, those on the Left need to stop standing in the way of the real solutions that will get America back to work. Onerous regulations, a refusal to tap into our domestic resources, and a massive, confusing, and uncompetitive tax code are holding our country back. Along with many of my conservative colleagues, I authored legislation to cut through these bonds restraining our economy. Yet when we try to address issues such as these, we find ourselves blocked by Majority Leader Reid and his Senate. House Republicans have sent bill after bill to their doorstep, but they continue to obstruct our efforts at every step.

The President too has been an obstacle to recovery. He claims he wants a new era of domestic energy production. His own Council on Jobs and Competitiveness earlier this month issued its Road Map to Renewal, saying “regulatory and permitting obstacles that could threaten the development of some energy projects” also threaten jobs and weaken our energy infrastructure.  They advise an “all in” approach that includes the construction of more fuel pipelines to accelerate economic recovery. But despite these recommendations from the Administration’s Jobs Council, support from both sides of the aisle and more importantly, the American people,  he personally blocked the Keystone pipeline. It alone would have provide an immediate 20,000 jobs and many fold more in the future.

President Obama’s EPA also released thousands of new, onerous regulations that drastically weakened our coal and natural gas production. After seeing this effect, they somehow still think it is acceptable to meddle even more. In fact, a recent analysis projected that just two proposed EPA regulations would destroy over 1.4 million jobs by 2020. It also predicted electricity rates would rise by over 23 percent in some areas of the United States. All together, consumers would be paying over $8 billion more in natural gas costs per year. And that is only an isolated example of the total damage this single agency is doing.

This is not pro-jobs. This is not pro-domestic energy. This will not get our economy back on track.

I call on Senator Reid, his Democrats, and President Obama to put aside their broken policies and finally join us to unshackle the free market. Throughout American history, that has been the engine driving us to unprecedented success and global leadership. Playing politics and selling more taxation, government interference and handouts may rally the Democrat base for the 2012 elections, but it will only further cripple the economy and indebten future generations in the long run.

America is at a turning point. The continued obstruction of those on the left against returning to the principles that made America great has pushed us to the edge. The national debt is approaching an insurmountable point. Our economy is critically poisoned by the toxins of government intrusion.

For those out across our great country who are tired of this destruction, I urge you to join me in turning back the tide. Call your representatives and the President and demand they end the political gamesmanship. Demand they finally work across the aisle for real, long term fiscal stability and growth. Only then can we return to the prosperity of the past.