In response to the latest unemployment numbers—which showed unemployment holding steady at 9.7 percent, but with 36,000 people having lost their jobs last month—House minority whip Eric Cantor declared:
Today’s jobs report is the latest warning that the threat of oppressive regulations and health care mandates from Washington, as well as skyrocketing deficits and tax increases, are actively preventing job creation.
So Cantor’s blaming this job loss on President Barack Obama’s push for health care reform. But here’s a question for him. In late 2008 and early 2009—when there was no effort under way to repair the nation’s troubled health care system—the economy was shedding several hundred thousand jobs a month. So if those massive unemployment numbers weren’t connected to health care reform, why are the more modest job losses tied to this effort? Might the answer have something to do with…political convenience?
