Washington, DC -- Congressman Eliot Engel (D-NY-17) called on the House Republican Majority to use the promising July jobs numbers to finally fulfill its promise to the American people to have a “laser-like” focus on jobs.  The self-inflicted distraction of the debt ceiling debate has passed, so there is no excuse to continue avoiding any kind of jobs bill to help Americans get back to work.

The July report indicated that not only did the nation add a total of 117,000 jobs, but the U.S. Department of Labor also amended the May and June reports by showing an additional 56,000 jobs added for those months.  The private sector added 154,000 jobs in July, with the state and local governments suffering job losses to drop the total down to 117,000.  A portion of those lost government jobs stemmed from the Minnesota government shutdown. 

“With 13.9 million Americans still out of work, the path to employment is long, and full of roadblocks.  Unfortunately, the federal government has been placing some of those obstacles up themselves,” the 12-term congressman said. 

“Many economists believe that deep budget cuts are bad for the economy, and that the federal government needs to spend to stimulate recovery.  A balanced budget is nice in concept, and important for families to achieve, but for the federal government it leads to situations where disaster victims were told they must find an offset before FEMA is able to help them recover after their town was destroyed.

“After opposing every jobs bill introduced in 2010, no one can be shocked they have ignored the unemployment problem since taking the majority.  

“Instead of putting the resources of the federal government to help the recovery and put more people back to work, the Republican agenda has focused more on repealing the Affordable Care Act, and eliminating the thousands of jobs connected to it.  The Tea Party-led Republican Majority led the nation to the brink of default for no good reason other than to advance their anti-government agenda.  The answer is not more rhetoric on lowering corporate taxes; in fact, total federal tax revenue as a percentage of Gross National Product has averaged 14.9% since January 2009, the lowest in decades.  It is expected to drop even further in 2011.  That type of policy is what got us in this mess in the first place. 

“Let’s stop the ideological gamesmanship, work together, and produce a jobs bill which helps the unemployed and aids employers at the same time.”

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