Jobs and the Economy

The Number of Employed Americans Down 322,000 After More Than Three Years of the Obama “Recovery”: While the unemployment rates has fallen in recent months, the actual number of people in the U.S. with a job has decreased by 322,000 since February 2009 when President Obama and Congressional Democrats approved a failed $1 trillion stimulus. The lower unemployment rate is not a reflection of more jobs being created, but less people trying to find a job in this dismal economy. In fact, the labor force participation rate, which measures the percentage of able Americans working or looking for work, was at a 32-year low of 63.6 percent in April.

Spending

National Debt Now More Than $50,000 for Every U.S. Citizen: After more than three years of unsustainable spending under President Obama, the national debt is now $15.7 trillion, the highest in history and an increase of 48 percent since President Obama took office. The share of our nation’s debt is now equal to $50,098 for every man, woman, and child in the U.S.

Medicare

Premium Support and Bending the Cost Curve:  Former CBO Assistant Director and current AEI scholar, Joe Antos, in his recent testimony to the House Ways and Means Committee Subcommittee on Health, argues “If we ever hope to bend Medicare’s cost curve, we must change the financial incentives that drive program spending to increasingly unaffordable levels.  A well-designed premium support program can take full advantage of market competition to drive out unnecessary spending and increase Medicare’s value to beneficiaries…The alternative approach relies on tighter regulation and cuts in provider payment rates without changing the underlying fee-for-service incentives that have driven Medicare spending to unprecedented levels.  That is ultimately self-defeating, stifling private sector creativity rather than channeling it toward system-wide improvement.”

The Republican Plan for Job Creation and Growth

House Republicans have a plan to restore confidence and certainty to the economy and create jobs.  For more information on the House Republican Growth Plan, click here: http://www.gop.gov/indepth/jobs.