The economy just had its best 12 months of job growth in more than five years.
— @DLeonhardt via TweetDeck
Even when you clean up after their mess, Republicans still complain
RNC chairman Reince Priebus:
"Today's jobs report is yet another reminder that far too many Americans are out of work, and the situation is clearly not improving. Millions of families continue to feel the pain of the sluggish Obama economy and the rising cost of gas, groceries, and healthcare. They are still waiting on President Obama to keep his promise of an economic recovery," said RNC Chairman Reince Priebus.
"Widespread joblessness has become the norm under this president, and the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office predicts that unemployment will remain above 8 percent this year and next. That's unacceptable. America must change direction before our future is forever mortgaged."
The question here isn't whether unemployment is too high or whether we should be satisfied with where the economy is today, the question is whether we're heading in the right direction or not—and you can't answer that question without taking into account the horrendous economic situation that President Obama inherited.
When Obama took office, the economy was losing nearly one million jobs per month and we were in the midst of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. Not only did President Obama's policies get the crisis under control, but since the end of the recession, they've helped fuel economic recovery with three million private sector jobs created since July of 2009, when the recession officially ended.
This isn't to say that Obama's policies have been perfect—we needed more stimulus more quickly and we shouldn't have gotten sidetracked into a debate on long term fiscal policy. But virtually every idea Republicans proposed would have made things worse rather than better.
Let's never forget that during Bush's eight years in office, the economy lost 646,000 private sector jobs. Under Obama, it's lost 274,000 jobs despite the fact that the economy was losing hundreds of thousands of jobs per month when he took office thanks to the Bush Republican policies. But even if you take that 274,000 figure out of context, it's still better than Bush's abysmal record, and by the time the November election rolls around, it will be better still. And will be Reince Priebus, not Barack Obama, who's out of a job.