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The June jobs report does not look good for anybody. With unemployment up 9.2 percent and only 18,000 jobs added--despite reports that up to 175,000 jobs had been created--Republican leaders have been quick to blame President Obama for not better handling the recovery. Obama is doing damage control by delivering a statement Friday morning and likely attempting not to let the jobs report blow the debt ceiling deal he's been working towards. Meanwhile, economists are scrambling to figure out what's gone wrong.
House Speaker John Boehner said, "Today's report is more evidence that the misguided 'stimulus' spending binge, excessive regulations, and an overwhelming national debt continue to hold back private-sector job creation in our country." He seems similarly pessimistic about the debt ceiling talks, ""It is not like there is some imminent deal about to happen … This problem has not narrowed at all in the last several days. There is no agreement in private or in public."
Michele Bachmann directed her disapproval more directly at Obama, her opponent in the 2012 presidential campaign. "It's stunningly bad news. It's bad news for the president politically, but it's even worse news for the American people," she said of the June jobs report. "Clearly the president's policies haven't worked. It's a failure. The stimulus has only brought us deeper in debt with nothing to show for it."