“…on Friday, I signed into law a bill that will do two things for the American people. First, it will keep thousands of construction workers on the job rebuilding our nation’s infrastructure. Second, it will keep interest rates on federal student loans from doubling this year – which would have hit more than seven million students with about a thousand dollars more on their loan payments. Those steps will make a real difference in the lives of millions of Americans. But make no mistake: we’ve got more to do. The construction industry was hit brutally hard when the housing bubble burst. So it’s not enough to just keep construction workers on the job doing projects that were already underway. For months, I’ve been calling on Congress to take half the money we’re no longer spending on war and use it to do some nation-building here at home. There’s work to be done building roads and bridges and wireless networks. And there are hundreds of thousands of construction workers ready to do it…” — The President’s weekly address

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“Conservatives would have you believe that our disappointing economic performance has somehow been caused by excessive government spending, which crowds out private job creation. But the reality is that private-sector job growth has more or less matched the recoveries from the last two recessions; the big difference this time is an unprecedented fall in public employment, which is now about 1.4 million jobs less than it would be if it had grown as fast as it did under President George W. Bush. And, if we had those extra jobs, the unemployment rate would be much lower than it is — something like 7.3 percent instead of 8.2 percent. It sure looks as if cutting government when the economy is deeply depressed hurts rather than helps the American people.” – Paul Krugman
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