Obama - A Total Failure!

Even with terrible numbers like this somehow Politico can still find a way to "carry Obama's Water".....

Unemployment up; 69K jobs added

The unemployment rate is up at 8.2 percent, reports the Labor Department.

By JOSH BOAK | 6/1/12 8:39 AM EDT Updated: 6/1/12 9:23 AM EDT

Republicans quickly seized on anemic jobs number released Friday to press the case that it’s time for a change in the White House, with Republican nominee Mitt Romney saying, “It is now clear to everyone that President Obama’s policies have failed to achieve their goals.”

A recovery that looked strong at the start of the year sputtered last month, with the economy adding a mere 69,000 jobs in May - well below expectations of 150,000 new jobs - and the unemployment rate ticking up slightly to 8.2 percent, the Labor Department reported. The May report capped a stunning reversal from monthly reports of more than 200,000 new jobs as the headwinds of Europe and a broader global slowdown have struck the U.S. economy.

The disappointing numbers undermine a key talking point by President Barack Obama of an economy slowly but steadily on the mend, a crucial argument as he faces Romney, who is focusing his campaign squarely on the president’s handling of the economy.

“It is now clear to everyone that President Obama’s policies have failed to achieve their goals and that the Obama economy is crushing America’s middle class,” Romney said in a statement.

“Today’s weak jobs report is devastating news for American workers and American families,” he added. “This week has seen a cascade of one bad piece of economic news after another. Slowing GDP growth, plunging consumer confidence, an increase in unemployment claims, and now another dismal jobs report all stand as a harsh indictment of the President’s handling of the economy.”

MSNBC’s Chuck Todd summed it up Friday morning when he called the data “a stomach punch to the White House.”

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) pounced on Obama.

“This is terrible,” Cantor told CNBC. “These job numbers are pathetic. It really cries out for us to actually try something new now.

“We’ve seen again and again the repeated policies of government regulation, of more prescription coming from Washington, all adding uncertainty,” Cantor continued. “There is just too much uncertainty. They don’t know what their tax rates are going to be, they don’t know what their health care costs are going to be. And Lord knows what kind of regulations one of these agencies in washington are going to come down with.”

There was no immediate response from the White House to the barrage of GOP criticism

Comment:  I am sure Obama hasn't yet had time to make up the appropriate excuse or to decide who he will blame for this month's poor performance...no doubt it will be either Bush, Earthquakes, or maybe Big Oil, Venture Capitalists, or Fossil Fuels.....who will the Teflon Blamer in Chief blame this time....What a pathetic excuse for a President Obama is....
Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus declared the jobs numbers “extremely troubling,” and used the report to make the case for Romney.

“As President Obama jets off to multiple campaign fundraisers today, families across America are still struggling just to make ends meet. The president is desperate to win a second term, but for most Americans, his first term has been unbearable,” Priebus said in a statement. “If elected president, Governor Romney will end President Obama’s job-killing policies. Unlike President Obama, Mitt Romney actually has the experience and the know-how to get our country moving, finally, in the right direction.”

And Texas Rep. Jeb Hensarling said, “It’s very disappointing and it’s just another confirmation that after three and a half years the president’s policies are still failing.”

“We still have millions of Americans who are still either unemployed or underemployed. Forty months now of 8 percent plus unemployment, when the president told us if we passed his stimulus plan it would never rise above 8 percent,” the Republican lawmaker said on CNN’s “Starting Point.”

Wall Street economists projected that 150,000 jobs were created in May, with the unemployment rate staying flat at 8.1 percent. And in more evidence of pain, the Labor Department revised downward job growth in both March and April by a combined 49,000.

Austan Goolsbee, the former chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, stressed that the economy simply hasn’t improved at a fast enough pace to spur hiring. On Thursday, the Commerce Department lowered the gross domestic product in the first three months of the year to 1.9 percent from 2.2 percent.

“We’re in a race against productivity and the growth rate hasn’t been very high,” Goolsbee told CNBC, adding, “The stuff in Europe is not making this problem is any easier.”

A 28,000-job drop in the construction sector contributed to the weak report, with another 14,000 jobs lost in the accounting and bookkeeping professions. Leisure and hospitality shed 9,000 jobs, and government employment fell by 13,000. Manufacturing, transportation and warehousing, and health care were the bright spots contributing to the meager gains.

The sovereign debt crisis in Greece — stirring concerns that the beleaguered nation will leave the euro zone — and continued turmoil about whether Spain can meet its financial obligations have sent the stock market spiraling downward in recent months. Adding to that problem are slowdowns in developing economies like China and India, key trading partners and primary sources of growth worldwide.

Patrick Reis, MJ Lee and Tim Mak contributed to this report.