Rooney: 8.3 percent unemployment 'not nearly good enough'

U.S. Rep. Tom Rooney, R-Tequesta, praised job creators for helping to bring the national unemployment rate to 8.3 percent in January, down 0.2 of a percentage point from December.

However, in a release, he urged the White House to do more to push the Democratic-led Senate to support 27 billsfocused on reducing regulations that have been approved by the House.

The following release is from Rooney:

Americas job creators and our workforce deserve tremendous credit for the job gains theyve produced in recent months, despite policies from Washington -- like a broken tax code, a deluge of costly regulations, and a crushing debt burden -- that have made economic growth and job creation significantly more difficult.

Any growth in jobs is a positive step, but 8.3 percent unemployment is not nearly good enough, especially with the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projecting unemployment to climb steadily over the next year.

If President Obama is as serious about creating jobs for the American people as he is about protecting his own, hell take a short break from campaigning to demand that the Senate take up and pass the 27 bipartisan jobs bills that have passed the House but cant even get a vote in the Democratic Senate.

President Obama should listen to his own jobs council, which has endorsed the ideas in my jobs plan reform the tax code, reduce costly regulations, and expand American energy production.