Cantor: Job numbers show it is time to cut

The Labor Department reported Friday that the nation’s unemployment rate had fallen to 9 percent in January, down nearly a percentage point since November’s level of 9.8 percent. However, much of that decrease was driven by the jobless abandoning their hunt for work, as job growth numbers came in at a paltry 36,000.

Cantor acknowledged that the tax-cut package that lawmakers agreed on in last year’s lame duck session helped bring certainty to the private sector. But since then, he said Democrats have returned to “more of the same stimulus-style government spending that failed to create jobs and added to our fiscal woes.”

Cantor’s comments echo the reaction of House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) to the report. Boehner accused the administration of pursuing policies, such as the stimulus act, that failed to prevent high unemployment. He also took the administration to task for asking for an increase to the $14.3 trillion debt limit without a complementary promise to cut spending.

Meanwhile, the administration agreed with Cantor that much work remains to be done on the employment front, but used the new report to tout its efforts to boost the economy.

Austan Goolsbee, the chair of the administration’s Council of Economic Advisers, said that while the unemployment rate remains “unacceptably high,” the data show the private sector has added 1.1 million jobs in 2010, the highest rate of growth since 2006.

“The overall trend of economic data in recent months has been encouraging, as initiatives put in place by this administration are taking hold, but there is still considerable work to do,” he said.