Keep Pushing On Jobs, Mr. President

washingtonpost.com — The January jobs report — 243,000 jobs added — was greeted with widespread relief. The economists over at the Wall Street Journal were virtually giddy. The best news of the day was not just the upside surprise of the jobs numbers, but the reaction of President Obama. He joined commentators in hailing the good news: “the economy is growing stronger. The recovery is speeding up.” But he wasn’t proclaiming “recovery winter,” a reference to the ruinous White House plan to campaign on the recovery in the summer of 2010, after prematurely turning to deficit reduction in the State of the Union that year. Instead, the president greeted the jobs report by pushing for more action. “We must do everything in our power to keep it [jobs growth] going.” This stance is both good policy and good politics.

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