TOPEKA—U.S. Congressman Todd Tiahrt (R-Goddard) issued the following statement in response to the job loss numbers released today for June. According to the Department of Labor, another 467,000 workers lost their jobs last month pushing the national unemployment rate to 9.5 percent, the highest level in more than 25 years. This comes a day after President Obama told Americans that his stimulus plan has "done its job."

"Yesterday President Obama told us his economic stimulus plan has worked and that it is building our economy," said Tiahrt. "Today we learn that nearly a half million more workers lost their jobs last month and that unemployment has climbed to 9.5 percent. It is clear the Obama plan is not working and should be repealed immediately.

"President Obama and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi are repeating the failures of the past. In the 1930’s massive government spending left us with double-digit unemployment at the end of the decade. In the 1990’s Japan tried to spend itself out of a recession and today economists call it their lost decade. Borrowing more money from taxpayers to build a bigger, more intrusive federal bureaucracy has not worked in the past and will not work for us now.

"We must grow our economy from the ground up by increasing opportunities for Americans to pursue their dreams, not by building a government-controlled Soviet-era economy. Returning to the Jimmy Carter misery index through bailouts, stimulus spending and government takeovers of private industry is a plan for failure.

"We are trying to prevent a terrible economic tragedy for ourselves and our children by fighting for repeal of the stimulus bill. Speaker Pelosi does not want this to happen and is blocking the House from even voting on my bill to stop the stimulus spending that either increases our debt to China or forces the Treasury Department to print more money.

"We can turn this economy around, but we must unite against the failed spending policies of the Democrat majority, stop the administration’s tax and spend plans and grow the economy from the ground up, not the government down."

For more information on Tiahrt’s Repeal the Stimulus bill, click here.