WASHINGTON – U.S. Sen. John Boozman, R-Ark., voiced his opposition Tuesday to another round of stimulus spending saying the Democratic approach to job creation had failed.
Speaking on the Senate floor, Boozman instead urged colleagues to back GOP efforts to reduce federal spending and regulations to create a business climate conducive to job growth.
The address followed Friday’s dismal employment report that found the economy adding 69,000 jobs in May – about half what economists had anticipated.
President Obama responded to the news that unemployment had inched up to 8.2 percent by urging Congress to approve the jobs bill he sent them last September.
“Congress has passed a few parts of that jobs bill, like a tax cut that’s allowing working Americans to keep more of your paychecks every week,” Obama said at a Saturday event in Golden Valley, Minn. “But Congress has not acted on enough of the other ideas in that bill that would make a difference and help create jobs right now. And there’s no excuse for it.”
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
On the Senate floor Tuesday, Boozman suggested that Obama has lost credibility when it comes to improving the economy.
“When the President pushed through his massive stimulus package in 2009, he claimed unemployment would be below 6 percent today. With a national unemployment rate of 8.2 percent, we are not even close to 6 percent, much less below it,” Boozman said.
“The President met the report with a call for another round of stimulus spending. We tried that. It didn’t work. More of the same will not work either.”
Washington should “change course,” Boozman said by taking up Republican “market-based reforms.”
The Senate Republican plan, which was introduced last October, pulled together a GOP wish list to sharply reduce federal regulation of business, endorse a balanced budget amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and simplify the tax code.