Acting U.S. Commerce Secretary: Better Job Growth Ahead

Acting U.S. Commerce Secretary Rebecca Blank was in Wisconsin Monday and said better job growth should be ahead in the next year or two. Republicans say they are skeptical.

Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney is running a new television ad in Wisconsin that makes the ambitious promise to cut spending, eliminate the deficit and create more than 240,000 new jobs in the state. During a visit to Milwaukee, acting Commerce Secretary Blank said she expects the U.S. economy to grow strongly in the next two years, and she says the Obama administration has put the right conditions in place. “Well, the right conditions are first of all that households have pulled down debt, and are beginning to spend again. We have a very vibrant manufacturing and export sector. We’ve done more than almost any other country to restructure our financial institutions, which is one reason why money is falling into the U.S. and out of Europe. It was a rather deep recession. It takes a while to get out of that.”

The Romney campaign’s Wisconsin representative Ben Sparks says the Obama administration’s optimism about job creation is misplaced, if President Obama stays in office. “Look, we just had a dismal jobs report. Only 96,000 jobs were added by employers, but that doesn’t tell the whole story. In reality, for every net new job that was created, nearly four Americans gave up looking for work entirely.”

The Romney vs. Obama competition continues in Wisconsin this week, with planned visits by Vice President Joe Biden and his Republican challenger Paul Ryan.