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Who’s at Fault: Obama or Congress?

When our job market is still weak after so long and too many Americans are out of work, the blame game starts to arise. People want to know who should be held accountable for this and what should be done. For the past few months, the unemployment rate has stayed virtually the same. Last month it ticked up .1 percent to 8.2 and many want to know: why? Just this Friday, Obama gave his reasons as to why things have been so stagnant in our market as of late. The president believes that since Congress has failed to act on his job creation plans thank to the upcoming election, no progress has been made. When one party blames another and vice versa, it’s difficult to imagine how anything gets accomplished.

In a talk early Friday morning, Obama blamed Congress for the stagnant job growth in America. When he proposed his jobs plan last year, only part of it was considered and a small miniscule part passed. He stated that the plans he proposed last year would revive the construction industry, which is struggling as of late, and would put thousands of government workers back to work. This is a strong claim seeing as though both of these sectors of the job market aren’t doing very well at all. The public sector is seeing an exceeding amount of job cuts every month and their numbers continue to drop. Furthermore, the construction industry has been hit pretty hard since families are more reluctant to fix their homes when they have to worry about the stability of their jobs, and when local and state governments find ways to cut spending.

So why does Obama believe Congress ignored most of his plans? It’s simple: it’s an election year. “They left most of the jobs plan just sitting there. And in light of the headwinds that we’re facing right now, I urge them to reconsider, because there are steps we can take right now to put more people back to work,” he said as quoted in the Voice of America. Obama states that these ideas aren’t just his and that Congress shouldn’t hold them just because of their party affiliations. His plans are also the ideas of economists that believe they would make a positive impact on our economy.

To put the pressure on, Obama urged that if Congress is going to place these plans on the back-burner, they had better give the country a reason why. “Now if Congress decides despite all that, that they aren’t going to do anything about this simply because it’s an election year, then they should explain to the American people why. There’s going to be plenty of time to debate our respective plans for the future. That’s a debate I’m eager to have. But right now people in this town should be focused on doing everything we can to keep our recovery going and keeping our country strong.” And rightfully said, right?

When much of the country questions what Obama has done to better our situation, answers are needed. It’s unclear what or who will come out of this upcoming election, but the most important topic should be what we are going to do about our current economy and our sluggish, stagnant job market. The blame game can continue, but who will take the initiative and really start to get things done?

SOURCE
: Voice of America
IMAGE: Courtesy of CNN

Nicole Nicholson

Nicole is the Content Editor for Spark Hire and mainly writes for and edits the work for the Spark News blog. She graduated in 2010 with a BA in Journalism from DePaul University in Chicago, Illinois. She has a passion for writing, editing, and pretty much anything to do with content. In her free time she frequents the Chicago music scene and writes reviews on shows for her own personal blog. Connect with Nicole and Spark Hire on Facebook and Twitter

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