Wow.  What a total goofball.  After driving the unemployment rate up over 10% (despite the so-called stimulus), Phil Hare now calls it an achievement when the unemployment rate rose to 9.9% for April.  From Hare’s press release:

“Just one year ago, the unemployment rate hit a 25-year high. Now, due to the policies we adopted including the Recovery Act, our economy is creating jobs again and more Americans are back in the market looking for work. This is certainly good news, but with millions of Americans still unemployed, we cannot rest on our laurels.”

Question – was the skyrocketing unemployment rate for the past seventeen months also “due to the policies we adopted including the recovery Act”?  Can you believe these clowns?  He expects us to believe that the prior sixteen months of job losses — well beyond the promises made, if we would only enact the stimulus — had nothing whatsoever to do with the “policies adopted,” yet takes credit for one month of job gains, due in large measure to hiring for the constitutionally mandated census.  And even then, the unemployment rate rose to 9.9%!

Rest on our laurels, (i.e., “to be content with one’s past or present honors, achievements, etc.”) indeed!

 But what have you done, Mr. Hare?  What “laurels” can you rest on?  If destroying jobs and diverting nearly a trillion dollars from the private economy to your public sector union buddies is “laurels,” then please, rest! 

Let’s see what “laurels” Mr. Hare wants to rest on.  From the Bureau of Labor Statistics:

* In April, the number of unemployed persons was 15.3 million, and the unemployment rate edged up to 9.9 percent. The rate had been 9.7 percent for the first 3 months of this year.

* Among the major worker groups, the unemployment rate for whites (9.0 percent) edged up in April, while the rates for adult men (10.1 percent), adult women (8.2 percent), teenagers (25.4 percent), blacks (16.5 percent), and Hispanics (12.5 percent) showed little or no change.

* The number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks and over) continued to trend up over the month, reaching 6.7 million. In April, 45.9 percent of unemployed persons had been jobless for 27 weeks or more.

* The number of persons employed part time for economic reasons (sometimes referred to as involuntary part-time workers) was about unchanged at 9.2 million in April. These individuals were working part time because their hours had been cut back or because they were unable to find a full-time job.

That’s quite a list of laurels, Mr. Hare!  No wonder you don’t want to rest on them.

Hare’s latest solution?  Spend more of your money, of course!

Hare discussed two pieces of legislation he believes will speed up job creation. The first is the Local Jobs for America Act, a bill that would create one million public and private sector jobs by providing funding to local communities across the country. The bill would provide $75 billion over two years to local communities to hold off on planned cuts or hire back critical workers like teachers and emergency personnel.

More funding for more useless public sector “workers”…  what a joke.  Funneling money we don’t have at jobs that don’t sustain themselves is not job creation, it’s self-delusion.