Communications

**UPDATED: The Discouraged

Today’s job report highlights a crucial fact: the unemployment rate does not nearly measure the depth of distress.  An increasing number of unemployed Americans are simply giving up and ceasing to look for work. According to the report, there were an additional 136,000 workers became discouraged from seeking work last month. That brings the number of discouraged job seekers to 1.1 million from 734,000 one year ago.

They are discouraged for good reason: 20,000 more jobs were lost in January.   All told, more than 2.8 million Americans have lost their jobs since the stimulus was signed into law. Expect liberals to make a clarion call for additional spending to spur job creation, but the evidence is accumulating that their stimulus has failed miserably to breathe life into the economy. Piling on more taxpayer dollars would be irresponsible and ineffective.

Providing hope to the discouraged starts with encouraging small business owners – tax relief, paying ... more

President Barack Obama: But I campaigned on process. Part of what I campaigned on was changing how Washington works, opening up transparency and I think the health care debate as it unfolded legitimately raised concerns, not just among my opponents, but also among my supporters that we just don’t know what’s going on. And it’s an ugly process and it looks like there are a bunch of back room deals.

Diane Sawyer: People think you must say at the end of the day this is not who I was in 2008. These deals with Nebraska with Florida-

President Obama: Whoa, whoa, whoa, lets’ hold on a second, Diane. I mean, I think that this gets into big mush so let’s just clarify. I didn’t make a bunch of deals, alright? There’s a legislative process that is taking place in Congress and I am happy to own up to the fact that I have not changed Congress in how it operates the way I would have liked. So that’s point number one. Number two is that I think it is important to know that the promises ... more

Democrats like to say the Republican Party has presented no solutions to the problems facing the nation. In fact, just yesterday, in fine grandstanding form, President Obama challenged the Republican Party if they had solutions to “bring it on.” Is it possible that the President already forgot his meeting with House Republicans last Friday? Democrats might find the below video presentation a helpful refresher of the fact that the Republican Party has been presenting solutions all year long:

To read the GOP solutions presented to the President follow the link: http://www.gop.gov/solutions/

The $787 billion stimulus bill was negotiated behind closed doors, and White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said at the time that the President was “pleased with the process and the product…”

What AP characterized as “the most critical negotiations” of the Democrats’ proposed trillion dollar takeover of the U.S. health care system was done behind closed doors.

Yet this is the Obama Administration’s great example of transparency?

From Politico’s Playbook:

“David Axelrod tells us the White House is looking for more Baltimore-like opportunities: ‘One of the things we ran on, and one of the things that we’ve been reminded of lately, is the degree to which people want to see their business done in an open and transparent way. … The more people do their business in the open —, the better people will feel about the process and about their government…’”

What we are watching:

Deficits we can believe in: President Obama takes his budget proposals on the road today, appearing at a campaign-style town hall in New Hampshire. The president will visit a small business at 1:20 pm ET, and holds a town hall meeting at Nashua High School North, at 2:15 pm ET.

Former New Hampshire Governor and Republican State Committee Chairman John H. Sununu will participate in a media conference call TODAY at 11:00 AM to discuss President Obama’s disastrous budget and his trip to New Hampshire.

Illinois primary day: Voters in Illinois will have a chance to weigh in on their satisfaction with the Obama Administration’s policies over the past year.  Polls open at 7 am ET, and close at 8 pm ET.

In the news:

Budget trickery? ABC’s Jake Tapper notes that the administration’s deficit cutting strategy relies in part on, “$150 billion in deficit reduction from a health care reform bill that is -- for now -- stalled in Congress with no clear path forward.”

Leap of ... more