Today, the Department of Labor announced that the economy added 69,000 jobs in May, and the unemployment rate rose to 8.2 percent. Approximately 82,000 new jobs were created in the private sector, marking the 27th consecutive month of private sector job growth.

This morning’s report makes it clear there is much more work to do, but House Republicans insist on an obstruction-only agenda instead of working with Democrats to  grow our economy.  That’s why Leader Pelosi today again called on Speaker Boehner and his Republican colleagues to stop holding middle class tax cuts hostage in order to hand more tax breaks to millionaires—and to bring immediately to the House floor the bipartisan, Senate-passed transportation bill  that creates or saves more than 2 million jobs:

We have work to do.  We know it and the American people know it and American families across the country know it.  It’s clear that one way we can help is to pass the transportation bill.  I think it was instructive to read the jobless numbers this morning, the job loss in the construction sector was the largest of them all, once again, if we can – we have an answer to this and that is to pass a transportation bill, the bipartisan transportation bill.

The Republicans will say they sent 30 bills over to the Senate, they sent 30 pieces of message over to the Senate, we don’t need 30 message bills, we need one good bill, one good bipartisan bill and that’s the transportation bill.  It passed in a bipartisan way in the Senate a while ago.  We’re calling on the Speaker of the House to bring the transportation bill to the floor.  This is a bill that historically has been bipartisan for 35 years of current record, it has been bipartisan.  The Senate bill is a good bill that will create two-million jobs, let’s get on with it.  Let’s get our work done.

Additionally, I’m calling upon the Speaker to bring a middle-income tax cut to the floor which will build confidence in our economy, grow our economy and will create jobs.  We need to get this done and the time is long overdue…

It’s time for the Republicans to stop stalling, to stop stalling on the transportation bill which will create jobs.  Stop stalling on the middle income tax cut and stop implying that there is any thought that we would not honor the full faith and credit of the United States of America.  This is about confidence.  This is about growing the economy.  This is about creating jobs.