Rob Portman delivers weekly Republican address

"I'm Rob Portman, a United States Senator from Ohio.

"This week, 13 million Americans won't go to work, not because they're on vacation, but because they can't find jobs.

"As a candidate, Barack Obama promised to help these Americans find work.

"And exactly three years ago today, he pledged 'To get this economy back on its feet.' He said about the economy, 'Give it to me.'

"Well, America did give it to him. We gave him the ability to turn things around. And three years later, the results are in:

"Unemployment is over 8 percent for the longest period since the Great Depression. And it's actually higher than that because so many Americans are so discouraged—they've stopped looking for work.

"Families are earning less and their homes are worth less.

"We recently learned that last month, American manufacturing—once a reliable source of good-paying jobs—declined for the first time in three years.

"This year, more than a million young Americans graduated from college. And here's the stark reality: half of them can't find a full-time job to match their degrees. Half.

"It didn't have to be this way.

"For the past three years or so, we've known that the greatest challenge before us as a nation is an economy that's just not producing enough jobs.

"But instead of focusing on growing jobs and reigniting our economy, President Obama focused on growing government and tried to remake the United States into the image of the debt-laden countries of Europe.

"His approach has been more spending, more regulation, and higher taxes.

"You don't hear much from the President anymore about the two biggest initiatives of his time in office. One was passing the so-called stimulus bill. He and his economic team promised that spending almost $1 trillion of taxpayer money would get unemployment down to 5.6 percent by today. Instead, it's 46 percent higher. Measured by their own standards, his policies have failed us.

"The other initiative was pushing through the unaffordable health care spending law, which will grow the government by $2.6 trillion, and do something President Obama promised he would never do: hit millions of middle class Americans with a massive tax increase.

"Raising taxes on employers and the middle class, growing government at the expense of free enterprise, piling on new regulations that increase the cost of doing business—these burdens make it harder, not easier, to create jobs in America.

"President Obama increased government spending and borrowing—to levels we've never seen before. On his watch, the national debt has grown to a record $16 trillion—making it larger than our entire economy.