Instead, the president greeted the jobs report by pushing for more action. “We must do everything in our power to keep it [jobs growth] going.” He called on Congress to act on his initiative, unveiled in the State of the Union address this year, to create a $1 billion Veterans Jobs Corps to employ returning veterans in public construction projects over the next five years, and to send $5 billion in incentives to cities and towns to hire veterans as firefighters and other emergency responders. And the president laid down a clear challenge to House Republicans that they should act immediately to extend the payroll tax cut or earn justified blame for interfering with the recovery:
“Now is not the time for self-inflicted wounds to the economy. So I want to send a clear message to Congress: Do not slow the recovery that we are on; do not muck it up; keep it moving in the right direction.”
This stance is both good policy and good politics. With 24 million people still unemployed or underemployed, we’ve got a long way to go before hailing “recovery winter.” And the economy still faces harsh head winds. It’s less “tragic unforeseen disaster(s)”
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