As new statistics released Friday showed that the nation’s jobless rate has topped 9.5 percent for 14 months, the longest stretch since the 1930s, U.S. Rep. Mike Michaud touted his record and 2nd Congressional District challenger Jason Levesque blamed Michaud for the sluggish economy.
The national unemployment rate held at 9.6 percent last month, the U.S. Department of Labor said Friday, spurred largely by a wave of government layoffs in September that outpaced weak hiring in the private sector. The nation’s payrolls fell by a net total of 95,000 jobs.
The statistics show that “Congressman Mike Michaud failed,” Levesque said. “Over the past two years, we have been fed empty promises and legislation that claimed it would fix the economy, all of which Mike Michaud supported — and it failed.”
Michaud expressed frustration at the unemployment rate, even though, he said, it showed private-sector employment growth every month this year. “Far too many people are still out of work,” he said in a statement released Friday.
It was a day of good and bad news that helped illustrate the differences between the candidates.
As the Republican challenger repeated criticism of, among other things, Michaud’s support of the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 and the federal government’s massive health care initiative, the incumbent Democrat from East Millinocket was praising the public-private effort that will allow Bedard Corp., a pharmacy and medical supply company in Lewiston, to expand into Auburn, Levesque’s hometown.
A $1.7 million Small Business Administration loan will help finance a new 36,000-square-foot office building — funding made possible, Michaud said, by the new Small Business Jobs Act. Besides clearing the way for the SBA loan, the law saved Bedard $36,900 in loan fees, Michaud said.
Bedard, which held a groundbreaking on Friday, employs 48 people in Lewiston. It will expand by 10 employees when the building opens in Auburn in early June, a company official said, while continuing to operate in Lewiston.
More jobs will come as Bedard continues to grow, Michaud said in a press statement.
“This is exactly what our state needs to continue to do — pull together public and private resources and expertise to leverage maximum economic benefit for Maine’s small businesses,” said Michaud, a member of the Small Business Committee and supporter of the Small Business Jobs Act.
Signed into law last month, the act is helping leverage billions in private-sector lending for small businesses nationwide, Michaud said. It provides $1.5 billion in funding for state lending programs, which help generate substantial private bank financing.
The bill, Michaud said, also gives small businesses $12 billion in tax cuts to spur investment, growth, new business creation and hiring by:
• Doubling and otherwise enhancing small business expensing and extending bonus depreciation;
• Allowing for 100 percent exclusion of capital-gains taxes on small business investments;
• Doubling the tax deduction for start-up expenditures;
• Allowing self-employed taxpayers to deduct health costs for payroll tax purposes.
Michaud also supported the law’s increase in government guarantees on certain types of loans, from 75 percent to 90 percent, which will, he said, increase Maine’s SBA loan volumes by 236 percent.
Michaud also announced the awarding of $5.05 million in grants that will fund health clinic expansions in Bangor, Houlton and Millinocket.
Levesque highlighted the unemployment statistics. In its final unemployment report before the November elections, the labor department reported:
• A net job loss of 18,000 positions, even after the subtraction of 77,000 temporary census jobs that ended last month. Government job losses led the declines in September with a net total of 159,000 public-sector jobs eliminated. Local governments cut 76,000 jobs last month, mostly teachers. States cut 7,000 jobs. The rest were census jobs.
• A nearly 1 million increase since July in the people working part time who prefer full-time work. They now total 9.5 million.
• The 9.5 million, plus the 14.8 million unemployed and the 2.5 million who have stopped looking for work, leave 26.8 million Americans who are “underemployed,” or 17.1 percent of Americans who want to work.
“Once Republicans take control of the House and fire Nancy Pelosi, that will send a very powerful message to the private sector saying that things are going to get better,” Levesque said, “and it’s not just empty promises.”
Yet the Republican plan of cutting government spending and regulation of business, Levesque conceded, would involve the federal government adding to the lists of unemployed, through layoffs. It also might involve curtailing business-aid programs like those Michaud touts.
“We have to stop thinking that only government spending can create jobs and by saying that we will cut spending,” Levesque said. “It tells people that we will get government spending in order.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.