House Republican leaders used the new economic forecast from the Congressional Budget Office Wednesday to criticize their Democratic counterparts for slowing the creation of jobs.
“The bottom line in this underwhelming report [is that] … President Obama’s policies are continuing to make it harder for the private sector to create jobs, and that’s continuing to make it harder to balance the federal budget,” Speaker of the House John Boehner wrote in a statement.
“Instead of giving a campaign-minded speech on jobs next month, the president must … break sharply with his past policies, abandon his reliance on short-term fixes and ‘stimulus’ spending gimmicks that are driving up the deficit and spreading uncertainty, and begin a bipartisan effort to remove government barriers that are standing in the way of long-term private-sector job growth,” Boehner wrote.
House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan wrote in a statement, “This reports confirms again that years of reckless overspending have not produced the economic growth or the jobs that the President promised and that American families need.”
“Earlier this year, House Republicans passed a plan that puts our budget on the path to balance and our economy on the path to prosperity. … [but] the President and his party’s leaders remain unwilling partners in advancing real reform,” Ryan wrote. (RELATED: CBO report: Higher taxes, lower spending projected to reduce deficit)
The Republicans’ focus on jobs, rather than deficits, reflects recent polling that shows swing voters are more concerned about high unemployment than high deficits.