Boehner: Obama Checked Out Last Labor Day

Speaker John Boehner slammed President Barack Obama’s failure to meet with his own Jobs Council, telling CNN that Obama “checked out last Labor Day.”

Appearing on CNN’s “The Situation Room,” the Ohio Republican said Obama not meeting with the Jobs Council proves that he “doesn’t give a damn about middle-class Americans.”

 “If he did, why wouldn’t he meet with his own Jobs Council?” Boehner asked host Wolf Blitzer. “Why wouldn’t he spend some time over the last nine months talking to the leaders here in Congress about what we can do together to help get our economy going again?

"The president checked out last Labor Day. And he’s been on the campaign trail nonstop ever since. It’s all about him.”

Obama’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness hasn’t held an official meeting since Jan. 17, despite continued weakness in the labor market. The unemployment rate stood at 8.2 percent in June, and the economy gained only 100,000 jobs last month.

When asked by Blitzer about passing an extension of tax cuts for people making under $250,000 first and fighting over the rest later, Boehner pointed out that an Ernst & Young study that made clear that “the president's plan to tax the so-called top 2 percent will cost our economy about 700,000 jobs."

"We all know that almost half that income from that top 2 percent are small businesspeople who run their businesses as pass-through entities,” Boehner said. “So, they end up paying their business taxes as part of their personal tax. And this is the wrong thing to do."

Boehner told Blitzer that he has “a very good relationship with the president," adding, “That doesn’t mean we agree on everything. And when you look at some of the nonsense that’s gone on in the campaign here over the last couple of weeks, you begin to scratch your head. Somebody has got to speak English. And I’m not afraid to do it.”