Saturday is the one year anniversary of President Obama presenting his “American Jobs Act” to Congress, which economists say would have added 2 million jobs, and about half of those almost immediately. The bill failed because every single GOP senator voted against it, and House Republicans refused to even vote on it.
Congress will soon have another chance to pass the bill, but pundits aren't optimistic. In light of Friday’s uninspiring jobs report, Rev. Al Sharpton asked PoliticsNation viewers, “Who are the real job killers?”
Mitt Romney has repeatedly asserted that he’ll be a better job creator than Obama, and Paul Ryan said the tepid jobs report is a result of “failed leadership in Washington and bad fiscal policy.”
Rev. Sharpton found the statement interesting, saying Ryan is part of that failed leadership in the House. He asked Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis where we’d be right now if Congress had passed the “American Jobs Act” a year ago.
She said America’s unemployment situation would be different, and offered a nod of blame to the Tea Party:
“It would have been a million jobs added. Obviously, right now with the rate of unemployment ticked down, we could have had it lower if we could’ve put a million people back to work in infrastructure jobs, construction, but also putting teachers back to work, firefighters…it’s a proposal that Republicans had previously supported. So what we would like to say is that we want the public to notify their members of Congress. The gridlock and obstructionists have been the members of Congress, the new members that have overtaken that party. And we need to say, look, it’s not about what party you’re a part of, it’s about helping our constituents, our grassroots people, people that live in our communities.”
Rev. Sharpton asked Solis, a former member of Congress, why Americans aren’t more outraged by lawmakers actively blocking job-creating changes from being accomplished. She didn’t know, but offered this advice:
“The best thing I can say to you, as the President has told us, is that people need to get the word out. People need to contact their members of Congress and the Senate, because that’s the best persuasive evidence that we have. Contact your members. These proposals aren’t just from Obama, they’re also from Republicans; they make sense. So let’s put these people back to work.”