Jobs And Debt Ceiling: Hey, Eric Cantor, That’s Not A Laser, It’s A Fly Swatter

In 210 days, the Republicans haven’t done a single thing to create jobs — or a jobs climate — in America. 

House majority leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) today said via Twitter, “We must keep focusing like a laser on jobs & stop Washington from getting in the way of growth in this country,” right before taking off for a five-week vacation.

The concept that any House or Senate Republican has been “focusing like a laser on jobs” is accurate only if they are talking about their own.

This Congress now has the dubious distinction of having earned a 14% job approval rating, according to a CNN poll released this morning. That 14% is down from 26% in January. It is the lowest recorded.

And if you think it’s a partisan issue, you’d be wrong. Disapproval numbers regardless of party or philosophy are at best 81%, at worst, 87%.

The same poll also found that 60% of Americans “disapprove of the fact that the debt ceiling agreement does not include tax increases” for businesses and high-income individuals, and by far blames Republicans in Congress for the debt ceiling agreement.

But perhaps the most-telling answers were to the question, “In general, do you think the elected officials in Washington who have dealt with the debt ceiling in the past few days have behaved mostly like responsible adults or mostly like spoiled children?”

Spoiled children: 77%

Responsible adults: 17%

Say what you like about Obama’s declining poll numbers. A 45% approval rating trumps a 14% any day of the year.