House Minority Whip Eric Cantor said Tuesday that the phrase “shovel ready jobs” should be the mantra for the Obama administration’s job plan. (0:43)

 

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Travis Martinez, University of New Mexico/Talk Radio News Service

House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-VA) told reporters at a press conference Tuesday that President Barack Obama and Congressional Democrats cannot stimulate the economy through spending alone.

“[I] absolutely disagree that we can spend our way out of recession…You can’t spend money that we don’t have and keep doing it,” said Cantor. “We can do something to reinvigorate the confidence of investors.”

The press conference was in direct response to Obama’s remarks earlier today at the Brookings Institute. Obama proposed new growth solutions with tax cuts and incentives for small businesses and continued investment in American infrastructure.

“Ensuring that economic growth and job creation are strong and sustained is critical to ensuring that we are increasing revenues and decreasing spending on things like unemployment so that our deficits will start coming down,” Obama said.

Cantor refereed to his “No-costs jobs plan,” that he introduced last week during a discussion at the Heritage Foundation. Cantor’s plan proposes the Obama administration rescind self-imposed obstacles to economic growth and wealth creation by eliminating small business rules and regulations that have been detrimental for growth.

“We’ve got a lot of uncertainty out there right now that is inhibiting investors from getting back into the game. Obviously the White House is listening to the American people. Although the speeches are nice and the rhetoric about wanting to get Americans back to work are nice, the real question is … ‘what are they going to do,’” said Cantor.

By Meagan Wiseley – University of New Mexico/Talk Radio News Service

House Republican Conference Chairman Mike Pence (R-Ind.) told reporters at a pen and pad session Monday that U.S. President Barack Obama and Democrats in Congress should be focused on jobs and the economic recession, not climate change.

“House Republicans continue to believe that…jobs are the number one priority of the American people, and should be the number one priority of this Congress,” Pence said.

According to a press release from Pence’s office, the Republican leader believes President Obama should “address serious concerns before traveling to Copenhagen” for the United Nations global climate change summit.

“At the time of double-digit unemployment, the last thing our country needs is a jobs-killing cap and trade scheme on our families and small businesses by bureaucrats at the United Nations,” the statement added.

In his remarks before reporters, Pence also said that if Obama enters the U.S. into a political agreement to reduce carbon emissions, U.S. small businesses would be at a “competitive disadvantage to those developing countries who have pledged to protect their growing economies from international carbon caps.”

By Laura Smith – University of New Mexico/Talk Radio News Service

President of the American Enterprise Institute, Arthur Brooks, said Monday that entrepreneurship, hard work and merit will help guide the U.S. out of the recession.

“Those are the tools to get out of this recession or any other recession,” Brooks said during a discussion hosted by AEI and the the National Chamber Foundation on job creation.

According to the U.S. Department of Labor, the unemployment rate hit 10.2 percent in October, with California, Michigan, Florida and Illinois being the hardest hit.

Nick Schultz, editor-in-chief of American.com, quoted Wall Street Journal journalist Alan Blinder, saying, “It’s no wonder people have three things on their minds: jobs, jobs and jobs.”

However, Brooks says he thinks Americans care about different things.

“I think Americans care about three things that are actually more fundamental than jobs, jobs and more jobs, which is freedom, individual opportunity and a culture of entrepreneurship.”

By Meagan Wiseley – University of New Mexico/Talk Radio News Service

Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee Barney Frank (D-Mass.) said Friday that on the economic front, America received good news and bad news today following the Labor Department’s announcement of a 10.2% unemployment rate.

“Although 190,000 more American’s lost their jobs…that is substantially less than the pace at which they were losing jobs until fairly recently,” Frank said during remarks at a conference sponsored by NoLimits.org, a progressive on-line organization founded by Frank’s sister.

Frank said the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, or the stimulus bill, had a positive impact in deterring unemployment, explaining that unemployment rates would be higher if the stimulus bill hadn’t passed.

Frank also said that the lack of regulation in the financial sector, which he contributed to Alan Greenspan, the former Chairman of the Federal Reserve, led to the AIG crisis and the following recession. He praised the current Chairman of the Federal Reserve Ben Bernanke for his willingness to collaborate with Congress over new financial regulatory reforms.

Frank remained positive about the economic outlook.

“We are making progress … things are getting better virtually on every front [and] I am confident that when we are through with financial regulations…the kind of things that got us in trouble in the past won’t get us in trouble in the future,” Frank added.

Rep. Bob Latta (R-Ohio) tells reporters during a conference call on Friday that when he went home during the August recess, his constituents told him that they want Congress to focus on creating jobs before anything else. Latta says that one person told him that he doesn’t care about having access to healthcare if he doesn’t have the means of providing for his family. (:35)

 

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By Leah Valencia, University of New Mexico- Talk Radio News Service

Unemployment increased to 10.2 percent in October, the highest rate since 1983, leaving Americans with 190,000 less jobs, Bureau of Labor and Statistics Commission Keith Hall told Congress in a Joint Economic Committee hearing Friday.

“The declines are much smaller and less widespread than they were last Fall and Winter,” Hall said. “Nevertheless, some industries are still experiencing notable employment decline.”

Hall told the committee that in October the heavy construction, manufacturing and retail industries have had a particularly significant decline in employment losing a combined total of 163,000 jobs.

However, he added that some industries have seen an increase in employment. Health care and help services are among the few that have added jobs, with a much smaller figure of 63,000 combined jobs.

Hall said since the recession began the number of unemployed has more than doubled to 15.7 million.

“The number of long-term unemployed remained high in October,” Hall said. “5.6 million workers have been jobless for 27 weeks or more.”

He said the increasing number of people who have become discouraged in looking for work and therefore remained unemployed have added to the problem. In October there was a reported 808,000 discouraged workers, a figure up from 484,000 last year.

“These are individuals are not currently looking for work because they believe no jobs are available for them,” Hall said.

Committee members on both side of the aisle agreed that in terms of job creation, the economy is not where it needs to be. Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) said she believes the nation is on track to recovery, while Republicans argued that the Obama administration has not done enough to facilitate employment growth.

Rep. Bob Latta (R-Ohio) says the people who need to be concerned with the proposed health care reform bills are senior citizens since costs will be covered by making cuts to Medicare. Additionally, Latta says if Medicare funds can be paid for by waste fraud and abuse, the people currently in charge of waste fraud and abuse should lose their jobs.
(0:21)

 

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Man On The Street: Lynn, of South Carolina, responds to the DOW jump, saying that she would like to see more jobs and a better economy. Lynn adds that she doesn’t see where more jobs are going to come from because there’s no manufacturing base in America anymore and that more manufacturing jobs are in China. (0:14)

 

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FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said 75 percent of Fortune 500 companies only post job listings online, and if anyone wants a job with a Fortune 500 company that they would need broadband. (0:32)

 

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