Todd Tiahrt: “I plan on spending most of the next hour talking about how we are going to create an environment in America to create…”

“I plan on spending most of the next hour talking about how we are going to create an environment in America to create and keep jobs here not only tomorrow and in the future, but for long, long term purposes. First of all, though, I wanted to talk a little bit about the good news in our economy that we have seen lately. On July 8, the White House released some economic information that was very good for America. In the month of June, 146,000 new jobs were created. The payroll rose by that much. That makes 3.7 million jobs that have been created since May 2003. We have seen steady gains over the last 25 months. And today, more Americans are working than ever before. It is also important to note that the average wage of working Americans is now higher than it has ever been before in the history of our Nation. The unemployment rate also fell to 5.0 percent in June. That is the lowest rate that it has been since September of 2001. So our economy is strong, and it continues to grow. Our economic indicators show strong sustained growth, both in the real gross domestic product and in real income. Our durable goods orders are on the rise. They have increased 5.5 percent in May. That is the largest increase in 14 months. It is well above our early estimates. U.S. manufacturing continues to expand for the 25th consecutive month. U.S. manufacturing expanded in June.…”