Well, look, we — we anticipated that the recovery was slowing. The economy is still growing, but it's not growing as fast as it needs to. I've got things right now in — before Congress that we should move immediately. And I've said so before I went on vacation, and I'll keep on saying when I — now that I'm back. We should be passing legislation that helps small businesses get credit, that eliminates capital gains taxes so that they have more incentive to invest right now.
There are a whole host of measures we could take, no single element of which is a magic bullet but cumulatively can start continuing to build momentum for the recovery. But look, the — this was the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, and the worst recession since the Great Depression. And so, what we know is that we are going to have to slowly, steadily build confidence. Push more investment out there. Target areas like clean energy that we know are going to be be growth areas in the future.
Look at how we're doing our infrastructure, so that we can maximize the amount of jobs that are created. So, there — there are a range of steps that I hope we can get bipartisan support for. But right now, we're still — we're in the season, political season, which means that for the next two months there's going to be be constantly a contest in the minds of Members of Congress. And my Republican friends in Congress, between doing what the country needs and what they think may be advantageous in the — in terms of short term politics.
The president had a slightly different emphasis in June, when he discussed an employment report:
And this progress is reflected in the monthly jobs reports that we get each month. We received one today. In May, the economy added 431,000 jobs. (Applause.) Now, this is the fifth month in a row that we’ve seen job gains. And while we recognize that our recovery is still in its early stages and that there are going to be ups and downs in the months ahead -- things never go completely in a smooth line -- this report is a sign that our economy is getting stronger by the day.
