Washington, D.C. – Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA), Vice Chair of the House Republican Conference, joined a House Republican Leadership press conference about today’s unemployment report.  A transcript of her remarks is below.  To watch the video, click here.

“It was three years ago this month that President Obama came to Congress and said, ‘You must pass my stimulus package.’  It was a $787 billion spending program, and at that time, he promised Congress that if you pass this plan, unemployment will not exceed 8 percent.

“Well, this is the thirty-sixth month in a row that 8 percent has been exceeded.  And yet, it didn’t have to be this way.  There is a different approach that we could have taken, and Bill [Flores] pointed to it.  President Reagan took a very different approach.  He took an approach that was focused on pro-growth, free-market solutions.  And I think it’s important to remember that President Reagan actually had a more difficult, deeper recession.  Unemployment was higher, inflation was rampant, and yet he took an approach that, in the third year of his term resulted in the economy booming again. 

“President Obama has taken the approach of borrowing and spending, and those are policies that have failed.  And if anything, they’ve make things worse.  House Republicans stand here today looking forward to a pro-growth agenda - a jobs package that would actually get people back to work.”

The national unemployment rate is 8.3 percent.