Maryland Democratic Party Chair Yvette Lewis released the following statement today after the Department of Labor announced that the economy added 243,000 jobs in January. The unemployment rate fell to 8.3 percent, the lowest it has been since February 2009. With private businesses creating 257,000 jobs, this marks the 23rd consecutive month of private sector job growth.
The decisive decisions undertaken by President Obama have not only prevented us from sliding into a Great Depression, but have shifted from a situation where we were losing 800,000 jobs per month to 23 consecutive months of job creation. Today’s jobs report is another sign of progress and confirms that the President’s policies to put Americans back to work and lay a foundation for economic growth are working.
The President has laid out a bold vision to strengthen manufacturing, promote renewable energy, provide workers the skills to succeed and ensure everybody does their fair share. Mitt Romney and Republicans in Congress have a fundamentally different vision. Their approach to strip away consumer protections, slash investments in workers, students, and American industries, while protecting tax breaks for the wealthy and big business, is irresponsible and wrong.
Republicans may refuse to acknowledge the evidence that our economy is recovering, but the American people will see that the President has things moving in the right direction.
As you probably know by now, Maryland created more than twice as many new jobs as neighboring Virginia from January to November 2011 (26,700 vs. 10,900.)
98.5% of Maryland’s new jobs were created in the private sector. Only 30% of Virginia’s new jobs resulted from private sector job growth.
So what truth are we to draw from this?
Republicans, conservative think tanks, anti-labor activists and proponents of radical anti-tax dogma have long claimed that Maryland relies too heavily on federal spending, while DC’s southern neighbor Virginia is described as a bastion of private enterprise (at least when there’s a Republican in Richmond.)
All of this predictable economic fiction is flatly contradicted by the economic reality of last year’s job creation.
Maryland created twice as many new jobs in 2011, 98.5% of them in the private sector. And while Virginia created far fewer jobs, more than two-thirds of them depended on government spending.
Virginia is a big place, and it has a larger workforce to match. Which means that job for job, Virginia must not only create as many jobs as Maryland, but significantly more if it hopes to keep pace with the rate of economic growth in Maryland and push our region forward.
Before we can do that, we must acknowledge the economic facts of a changing economy. While we’ve come to accept that Maryland’s GOP sees greener pastures in neighboring states, lately this economic fiction has taken root beyond the shadows of right-wing blogs, and has been heard from the lips of politicians, pundits and newspaper columnists.
It’s surprisingly easy to detect economic fiction when you hear it. The economic facts are simply too accessible and clear to ignore. Perhaps that’s why Bob McDonnell is hoping to flee the Commonwealth to join forces with another great perpetrator of economic fiction – Mitt Romney.
This week, Congress has the chance to do something about it and pass a bill that will put thousands of construction workers back to work rebuilding our roads, bridges, airports and transit systems in MD. It’s a bill that includes the kinds of ideas both parties have voted for in the past. It’s paid for, and its ideas are supported by an overwhelming majority of the American people. It’s time for Congress to act.
Watch this video from Governor O’Malley where he talks about the need topass President Obama’s plan to create jobs with investments that rebuild America’s roads, bridges and railways. The act would help us immediately advance critical infrastructure projects in Maryland while at the same time supporting at least 8,100 jobs
