Linda McMahon's campaign: U.S. Senate candidate Dick Blumenthal this week acknowledged that he doesn’t understand why the unemployment rate is nearly 10 percent. Blumenthal’s stunning admission comes on the heels of a Gallup survey that found most Americans continue to cite concerns over the state of the economy and the nearly double-digit unemployment rate as the most important problems facing the nation.
“Dick Blumenthal can’t pretend to have solutions on unemployment when he doesn’t understand the root causes of job losses,” said Linda McMahon for Senate 2010 spokesman Ed Patru. “Connecticut families are looking first and foremost for leadership on the issue of job creation and its becoming clearer by the week that Dick Blumenthal is ill-equipped and embarrassingly underprepared to provide it.”
Scott Benjamin of the Litchfield County Times this week interviewed Attorney General Blumenthal. From the report: “In an interview following his presentation, Mr. Blumenthal said he couldn’t provide ‘a three-sentence analysis’ on why unemployment over the last year has been at the highest levels since 1982.” (Litchfield County Times, 7/19/10)
Blumenthal’s startling revelation comes just five months after Blumenthal hailed lawsuits as an effective tool for job creation. “Our lawsuits, our legal actions, actually create jobs because businesses actually welcome it,” announced Blumenthal in a televised March debate. (Hartford Courant/Fox 61, Democratic U.S. Senate Candidate Debate, 3/1/10)
“Dick Blumenthal is a career politician who has never created a private sector job, so perhaps it shouldn’t be surprising that he’s not only completely baffled by what is causing the nearly 10 percent unemployment rate, but also totally clueless on how to fix it,” added Patru. “Dick Blumenthal has proven over the years he knows how to hold a press conference and he certainly knows how to file a lawsuit, but the problem in Washington is not a lack of lawyers or politicians – it’s a lack of understanding how jobs are created. It’s a lack of understanding that bigger government stifles small businesses. It’s a lack of understanding that higher taxes and more litigation don’t create a single job.”
