Sat, June 02, 2012
by Sun Hao
WASHINGTON, June 1 (Xinhua) -- U.S. Democratic President Barack Obama and Republican presumptive nominee Mitt Romney on Friday continued warring over who will better lead U.S. economic recovery, the top agenda in 2012 presidential campaign, following a weak report of "backward" job creation.
SHADOW ON OBAMA'S ELECTION
The total nonfarm payrolls added merely 69,000 jobs in May, well below the market prediction and much lower than the average monthly gain of 226,000 jobs in the first quarter, the U.S. Labor Department reported on Friday, with the unemployment rate edging up to 8.2 percent.
The grim figures cast a shadow on sitting President Obama's reelection bid since attacks on his economic performance from his presidential rival Romney has been no news.
In a Friday speech in Golden Valley, Minnesota, Obama spoke of the tough times he inherited more than three years ago, when a toddler seated in his mother's lap nearby started wailing, a White House pool media reporter reported.
Obama defended his efforts in boosting the job market on Friday stressing that almost 4.3 million new jobs have been creating over the last 27 months.
"...but as we learned in today's jobs report, we're still not creating them as fast as we want," he acknowledged in the speech, adding the recovery would "take time" and "not be easy."
On his re-election bid, Obama referred to the mess he inherited from his predecessor from time to time, and blamed the Bush administration for the gloomy economy.
Obama said in his speech that Americans deserve leaders who will "do everything possible to strengthen the middle class and move this economy forward."
"The president's re-election slogan may be 'forward,' but it seems like we've been moving backward," Romney mocked on Friday. " We can do so much better in America. That's why I'm running for president."
Almost sealed the party's nomination by passing the threshold of 1,144 delegates needed earlier this week, Romney quickly seized the opportunity calling May's report "devastating news for American workers and American families" in a statement.
"This week has seen a cascade of one bad piece of economic news after another," he said, citing examples of slowing GDP growth, plunging consumer confidence, increasing unemployment claims and a dismal jobs report as "harsh indictment" of Obama's handling of U. S. economy.
He claimed that it is now clear to everyone that Obama's policies have failed to achieve the goals and that "the Obama economy is crushing America's middle class."
ROMNEY ECONOMICS WON'T WORK, EITHER?
For Romney's part, "look at my record" has been a sentence he often chanted. His campaign claims the successful private-sector background and the record as Massachusetts governor makes Romney much more suited to improve the economy than the incumbent president.
Last month, the Obama campaign released a hard-hitting ad describing Bain Capital, a private equity firm formerly run by Romney, as a job-killing "vampire." Obama team tried to raise more doubts this week over Romney's former governor background.
The Obama campaign moved forward by releasing a Web video ad Friday attacking Romney's self-proclaimed successful jobs record, which features criticism over his record on the economy by his opponents during the Republican primary.
"... Romney economics actually plummeted Massachusetts to 47th out of 50 states in job creation, increased debt and expanded government for the people of Massachusetts. Don't take our word for it -- just ask his fellow Republicans," the Obama campaign said in a statement.
As Romney often claimed what he has done for a state outperformed what Obama has done for a country, the ad shows his one-time rival Rick Kerry saying earlier this year "we created more jobs in Texas in last three months than he did in four years in Massachusetts."
Onscreen text declares at the end that "Romney economics: It didn't work then. It won't work now."
"President Obama continues to launch desperate attacks because he has no positive record or accomplishments to run on,"Romney campaign spokesman Ryan Williams said in a statement."If President Obama had even half the job-creation record of Mitt Romney, then he would be running on it."
JOB CREATION MASTER OF OBAMA'S FATE ON REELECTION
Obama must be aware of the fact often cited by U.S. media this year that no president has won re-election with unemployment rate above 8 percent since former President Franklin Roosevelt during the Great Depression.
William Galston, U.S. politics expert and senior fellow with think tank Brookings, said job creation and economic recovery will be the master of Obama's fate on his re-election bid.
"If the May report is a harbinger of what's coming, Romney's message that 'We can do better but Obama can't' will really resonate."
Gary Burtless, senior fellow of Brookings, noted on Friday the latest employment report offers "a mixed and mostly unpromising picture" of the job market recovery.
To keep pace with the growth in the working-age population employers need to add between 90,000 and 100,000 jobs every month, he said, adding a slower employment growth signals that the labor force participation rate must eventually fall or the unemployment rate will rise.
He warned that the problem of long term unemployment remains acute.
"Although the percentage of unemployed in long-term spells is down slightly from the peaks attained in 2010 and 2011, it remains sharply higher than in any month of the post-war period up through the Great Recession."
A Gallup survey released on Friday shows Obama and Romney won 45 percent and 46 percent respectively in approvals, still tying on their presidential election trail.
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