U.S. Congressman Mike Pence, Chairman of the House Republican Conference, made the following statement to today’s announcement that June unemployment reached 9.5 percent:

At a time when families are struggling to make ends meet, the rising unemployment rate is further evidence that we cannot borrow and spend and bail our way back to a growing economy.

More than four months after the economic stimulus was signed into law, our country still faces the highest unemployment in almost three decades.

Sadly, Democrats’ answer to near record unemployment is runaway federal spending and a national energy tax that will increase the cost of energy on every household in the country and cost millions of American jobs.

Congress should be doing what every American family is doing during these tough economic times: cutting expenses, and making sacrifices.

Instead, Washington is pushing for more spending, more debt and higher taxes, all on the backs of our nation’s taxpayers.

Our nation deserves a strategy for prosperity, not more spending, more taxes and more unemployment.