Is There Any Proof John Boehner Does More Than Piss, Moan, Whine, Bitch?

Speaker John Boehner (R-OH)

Boehner: Jobless Americans would 'just rather sit around'

byLaura Clawson

House Speaker John Boehner had some harsh words for jobless Americans Thursday. In response to a question at the end of a speech to a conservative audience:

Boehner then lamented "this idea that has been born, maybe out of the economy over the last couple years, that you know, I really don't have to work. I don't really want to do this. I think I'd rather just sit around. This is a very sick idea for our country."

Ahem:

Less than two weeks after the House returned from its "August recess," which stretched well into September, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy announced Thursday that the lower chamber would be leaving town once again. Not for a week, as originally planned. But for almost two months, so members can go home and campaign before Election Day.

ANYWAY. The "very sick idea" is that unemployed people would just rather sit around. The jobs economy is improving, slowly, but this is still an economy where there are 2.1 job seekers for every available job.

Put another way: Job seekers so outnumbered job openings that just over half of the unemployed were not going to find a job in July no matter what they did.

And yet, despite those odds, people are out there applying for every job in sight, sending out application after application, waiting for the phone to ring ... and, all too often, hearing nothing. And there's a lot Boehner could have done about that, like—just for instance—pushing a transportation bill that would have created thousands of badly needed construction jobs while making the country's bridges safer and connecting more people to public transit. But no. Boehner won't act to create jobs; he'd rather sit around sneering at and blaming the people who don't have them.