Washington, DC – U.S. Representative Judy Biggert (R-IL-13th) today issued the following statement after the U.S. Department of Labor reported a loss of 216,000 jobs in the month of August, raising the national unemployment rate to 9.7 percent:
 
            “With national unemployment rising to an alarming 26-year high, and over 11 percent of the workforce still out of a job in Chicago and the surrounding suburbs, it’s increasingly plain that Congress's big-spending approach to recovery is not working.  The so-called economic stimulus that was passed in February, described as 'silver buckshot' by Vice President Biden yesterday, has clearly missed its target.  Without action, major tax increases will continue to loom on the horizon, and massive new government spending will only continue to erode economic confidence and create uncertainty for families and small businesses trying to plan for their financial future.
 
            "It's past time for Congressional leadership to get serious about recovery and move to enact the sorts of targeted, fiscally responsible policies that create jobs in the near-term without undermining America's long-term financial stability.  For starters, Congress should set aside any plans to impose job-killing tax hike on small businesses to fund government-run health care, and make it clear that a massive cap-and-trade style tax on American industry and consumer goods is out of the question in today's economic climate.”

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