The American energy sector has been creating jobs and succeeding in spite of President BarackObama's policies, former Texas Gov. Rick Perry said Wednesday on
Fox News Channel's "The Kelly File."
"I'm waiting for the president to call me and thank me for the jobs that have been created in Texas over the course of the past 10 years," Perry said, pointing out that between September 2007 and now, 1.4 million jobs were created in the Lone Star State, while the country overall is still 400,000 jobs in the hole.
"And this president is standing up and taking credit for that?" Perry said in reference to Obama's State of the Union speech on Tuesday. "This is the same president that is standing up and taking credit for lower gasoline prices."
Over the course of the six years that Obama has been president, there has been a 61 percent increase in private-sector energy jobs and a 6 percent decrease on federal lands, he said.
"In spite of this president, the people of America have gone out and worked through policies that he's put into place that have actually killed jobs, kept things from happening," Perry said.
He said the United States is only "a couple of good decisions" away from an economic boom.
He said approving the Keystone XL pipeline would be one of those good decisions, as would a corporate tax policy that says "we want you to build and grow."