Column on jobs made questionable claims

Regarding Frederick “Rick” Miller's May 27 guest column, “Comparing Obama to Bush”:

One of Miller's points was that “public-sector jobs ... have grown in number during much of the current recession while private-sector jobs plummeted.”

That claim is false. While it's true that more than 750,000 private-sector jobs were lost in the president's very first month on the job, that loss was a result of the continuing trend from the economic meltdown and job losses that resulted from the Bush Administration's disastrous economic policies.

Thanks to the president's swift action in passing the Recovery Act, however, there are now more private-sector jobs in the United States than there were in January 2009 when he took office. In fact, under Obama, the United States has now recovered all of the private sector jobs lost (according to Think Progress, May 4). Also under Obama, there have been 26 straight months of private-sector job growth, with 4.2 million jobs created by businesses during that time.

I appreciate that The Gazette wants to publish opinions by both Republicans and Democrats to show balance. I only ask that they do a fact-check before running them.

Jo Ann McNiel

Cedar Rapids