The August Jobs Report

Floor Speech

Mr. Speaker, the August jobs report is out, and it contains more bad news. The 6-month trend creating 200,000-plus jobs is over.

Consider that in order to return to its previous pre-recession levels, the economy needs to add more than 380,000 private sector jobs every month. 200,000 is barely half of the needed number, and this month we dropped to 142,000 new jobs.

This ``new normal'' might be okay for Washington and the booming public sector, but it is not okay with the millions of Americans struggling to find work and the millions more who have given up looking altogether.

The House has passed more than 40 bills that would address our struggling economy and help create jobs. These bills are now sitting in the Senate while that body debates whether or not to gut the First Amendment.

Maybe if the Senators acted on some of these House-passed bills they wouldn't have to spend so much time worrying about what people are saying about them.

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