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>> hey, we’ve got good news tonight.
>> that doesn’t happen every day. we got more jobs and things are looking up for the economy. but, of course, the republicans are going to be debbie downers.
>> we’ll explain that in a second.
>> so today, we find out the private sector added 222,000 jobs in february, and the unemployment rate is finally below 9%. president obama shared the good news today in miami.
>> this morning, we learned the unemployment rate fell to its lowest level in nearly two year years.
>> our economy added another 222,000 jobs in the private sector. that’s the 12th straight month of private sector job growth. so our economy has now added 1.5 million private sector jobs over the last year.
>> that sounds pretty good, right? what did the republicans say? not good enough. texas congressman jeb haserling put out the following statement — quote, the real question is why is it taking so long and why is the recovery so weak? so he’s not having it. and guess what? it turns out it’s all obama’s fault. now here comes the twisty twist. it turns out eric cantor decided to go the other way and say it is good news and it’s all because of the republicans. he saw it as an encouraging sign saying republicans are responding to voters’ calls in the last election to be change the dull chur in washington. to put it simply, less government spending equals more private sector jobs. that’s funny because the gop spending cuts have not yet begun. they have not taken effect at all. but somehow they’re responsible for the job growth. well played, cantor. do they really believe it? that’s what i’m always amazed by. okay, what’s going to be the real result of the spending cuts? nearly every expert in the field, huge job losses. . and they’ve already begun. 30,000 state and local government jobs were already lost in february because of spending cuts. now, that’s not theoretical. that’s real. real jobs lost this month. now, when you turn to the private sector, even republican experts are saying the house republican plan to cut $61 billion from the budget will kill hundreds of thousands of jobs. ben bernanke said it could result in 200,000 jobs lost. moody’s economist mark zandy also says it could slow economic growth by half a percent. the plan could slow growth by as much as 2%. all the jobs that might get lost because of new rounds of cutting that that’s about to happen and already we’ve seen some public sector jobs lost that we saw last month. this is what they promised you when they got elected.
>> why isn’t the president focus focused on creating jobs that the american people are asking for? the american people keep asking, where are the jobs.
>> where are the jobs? where are the jobs? where are the jobs? americans are still asking the question, where are the jobs? these reforms have put us in a position to start immediately in january on the challenges that the american people are demanding that we address.
>> speaker boehner, where are the jobs? it looks like they’re here today. and what are you doing? you’re saying not good enough, et cetera, et cetera. you know, the oh thing, you said, you know, that you were going to create jobs and now look at all the jobs you’re going to lose apparently because of your spending cuts. what are you doing about it? that’s my question. since you took over, let’s take a look. these guys have been doing since about january 5, we can see what the real priorities are by looking at the list. they voteded to repeal health care reform. nothing to do with jobs. january 20, introduced a no taxpayer funding for abortion act. and that’s about abortion. february 8, house judiciary sub subcommittee hearing on funding for abortions. february 9, energy and commerce subcommittee hearing on protect the life act. yes, that would again be abortion. february 16, voted to slash funding for the national endowment for the arts. variety. okay. february 18, voted to reduce regulations for gun dealers, and voted to prohibit federal funds going towards planned parnd hood parenthood. we’re back to abortion. february 19, they voted to strip funding from the epa. and all that has what to do with jobs? it would appear absolutely nothing. and you saw the statement earlier. we creating the jobs with our spending cuts. that’s what we did. nonsense. so today when the news was all about jobs, boehner probably, finally did something about jobs, right? no, i’m getting news that he apparently did not. are you ready for this? he took action to go after gay marriage today. gay marriage. gay marriage. are you kidding me, man? unbelievable. they haven’t done a thing about jobs. they’re a joke.
>> now joining me is congressman mcdermott from washington. thank you for joining us. let me ask you this. let’s get right to it. is this part of a plan by the republicans to actually cost the american economy jobs so they can turn around and say in 2012, you see that, obama cost us the jobs?
>> well, cenk, you’ve pulled the curtain away from what their hidden agenda is. you have to remember one thing, if you just remember this for the next 24 months, you will understand what’s going on. they wanted to defeat barack obama in 2012. everything they do is directed at that. and what’s happening right now is their worst nightmare. here we’ve got more jobs, and they say the only thing we should be doing is cutting spending. people say no, no, that’s the right thing. they simply only have one note. and that note is beat barack obama. if it costs the economy, the tax payer es, the workers, we don’t care, as long as we beat him in 2012.
>> i know you’re one of the more progressive members of the house. but why are the democrats playing their game? it looks like we’re having a conversation with how much to do with spending cuts when everybody is saying it’s going to kill jobs for you guys. why don’t you say no?
>> they’re running the government two weeks at a time on the republican side. they want to keep chaos in this country for the next 10, 12 months if they can do it. and our attempt is to say all right, let’s make some cuts because the president has talked about cuts. everybody knows ultimately in the long term we’ll make cuts. let’s make some and give a continuing resolution, let this thing run until next september. the republicans will not allow the economy to settle down. they want chaos on a daily basis.
>> right, but if you’re dealing with people like that, shouldn’t you at some point draw the line and say if you do cuts beyond this, i think it’s going to cost the economy jobs, so i’m not going to stand for it. shouldn’t the president draw that line and say right now, all we’ve done so far is agreed and agreed and agreed to spending cuts and the republicans haven’t moved an inch.
>> one of the things the president has to deal with is if he refuses to some spending cuts — they’ve pushing this continued resolution along, waiting for the time when it comes to raise the debt limit. so the republicans think on that day when they have to continue the resolution and the debt limit raise, they will have maximum leverage to get the unemployed things to planned parenthood and to the epa and everything. they are looking to create chaos. and the president is trying to fight them, but it’s a tough battle. i mean, the other side doesn’t care about government. they really — the speaker is johnny one note. cut, cut, cut spending. that’s all he says. he never talks about jobs. he never talks about how you’re going to make the economy work. everything has been to undermine the president’s efforts.
>> johnny “one note” boehner, i like that. thank you for your time this evening. we
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