Lawmakers uneasy with unemployment

Associated Press

WASHINGTON

Why so glum?

Unemployment is dropping, but the reaction from both the left and right ends of the political spectrum is surprisingly unenthusiastic.

Conservatives fear the improvement will weaken their argument that the way to bring back jobs is less regulation and more fiscal discipline.

Liberals worry that better job numbers will create momentum for spending cuts that will cause the fragile recovery to falter

The divided reaction illustrates the ideological forces pulling at President Barack Obama as he tries to gain economic and political traction out of the positive jobs report.

“Overall, it’s a very solid jobs report,” said Austan Goolsbee, the chairman of Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers. “And overall there’s been increasing optimism that despite having a long way to go, we’re clearly headed the right direction and we’re putting some miles behind us and trying to get back to a good situation.”

Since the November elections that placed Republicans in control of the House and weakened the Democrats’ hold on the Senate, Republicans and conservatives have argued that the path to jobs is through deregulation of industries, fiscal restraint and low taxes.

Obama has embraced some of the advice, reaching out to business with a pledge to reconsider some government rules and compromising with Republicans by dropping, for now, his demand that the wealthy pay higher taxes.

So, even as the unemployment rate goes down, Republicans insist Obama’s past policies were at worst, counterproductive, or at best, ineffective. Jobs will come faster and with more staying power, they argue, if government simply gets out of the way.

Liberals and their Democratic allies have been pressing for more government intervention in the economy.

The fragile recovery still needs to be prodded by public spending, they say, and they bristle at attempts to cut current budgets. Obama has embraced some of that advice, too.

He has proposed additional taxpayer money toward education, research and technological innovation while negotiating with Republicans on how far to cut into current spending.