Hearing of the Joint Economic Committee - The Employment Situation in March 2008

SEN. SCHUMER: The hearing will come to order. I want to thank Commissioner Hall and his staff for being here.

Well, today we got some bad news on the job front. The numbers 80,000 and 60,000 should be a shot across the bow to this administration to get off its hands and start moving in terms of getting us out of the bad straits we're in in this economy.

These numbers are a shot across the bow. They are saying that the economy is getting soft. It's no longer just housing prices and credit, but jobs. And once you get the three together headed downward, there's real trouble in the economy.

And despite these job numbers, the administration continues its Hoover-like attitude of do-nothing. We get no help on getting some relief in the foreclosure crisis, on mortgages. We get no help on restructuring our financial system in a way that meets the 20th century.

We get no help on crafting a stimulus package that can get the economy going, a second stimulus package dealing with infrastructure and unemployment and the kind of direct spending that is needed to augment the tax relief that we have passed.

And so these numbers hopefully will be a wake-up call to the administration, a wake-up call to stop its Hoover-like trance of do- nothing; let the free market govern in any way. We believe in free markets, but we've learned over the last 100 years that there are ways to improve them.

I want to thank Baron Hill for chairing this hearing. I apologize; we have votes. I didn't expect to be able to be here at all. And thank the commissioner for his work.

Congressman.

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