Your Opinion: Rebuttal to congressman on jobs

Dear Editor:

In Congressman Luetkemeyer's Jan. 25 submission he asks, "Where are the jobs?" Quite frankly, he and his good ole boys in the House are the last people who should be asking that question. Republicans in Congress, and specifically GOP House representatives, have done everything possible to wreak havoc on our economy from failure to pass jobs programs to actually shutting down the government, costing us billions!

He tells us that he has been part of "job creation" bills that passed the House. For Congressman Luetkemeyer to call these proposals jobs bills is a stretch to say the least. The co-sponsored bills included things like changing the way comp time is awarded in business so employers don't have to pay overtime, changing wording for bank regulations, balanced budget amendments, and gazillions of attempts at the repeal of ACA.

I saw nothing that would have Americans jumping for joy that they could go out and get a bunch of newly created jobs. Many of the bills he co-sponsored have the word job in the title but upon close examination there is little there to bring actual jobs to Americans.

Again, he touts expansion of the Keystone Pipeline. Research shows this proposed pig in a poke will bring only temporary jobs, the cost to clean the oil will be exorbitant, and will not contribute to the U.S. energy picture. All oil from this pipeline will go overseas giving enormous profits to the Koch Brothers, big oil and GOP election coffers.

Then we hear that unemployment numbers are not reflecting folks that have stopped looking for work. The good congressman needs to tell us his sources. The only evidence I found were from Rush Limbaugh's site, Fox News,and Forbes.com, all of which are biased sources. Please no data from the tainted Heritage Foundation!

From where I sit I see a politician putting up another smokescreen to cover a lack of accomplishments, then switching the blame to someone else. And please don't even begin to talk about deficits or fiscal responsibility. That ship has sailed.

When is it time for fairness? Here in our own city a factory has moved and we've lost over 500 jobs. Congressman Luetkemeyer says he is looking out for us so how does he plan to replace those jobs? By passing the buck as usual?