McConnell: Jobless not amused by Obama's 'shovel-ready' joke

Unemployed Americans do not find a joke President Obama cracked about the economy earlier this week to be funny, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said from the Senate floor on Wednesday.

“He joked about the wildly mistaken predictions he and others at the White House made a couple of years back about the job-creating potential of the stimulus,” said McConnell. “Well, I don't think the 14 million Americans who are looking for jobs right now find any of this very funny.”

McConnell was referring to a crack Obama made earlier in the week in which he noted that some construction projects in the 2009 stimulus bill that were supposed to begin immediately have yet to materialize.

"Shovel-ready was not as shovel-ready as we expected," said Obama, to laughter.

In the battle between congressional Republicans and Democrats to place blame for a series of bad-news numbers that have emerged on the economy this month, McConnell was not the first to criticize Obama for his joke.

"He's a couple of years behind the rest of America," said Brendan Buck, a spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio). "But it's refreshing that the president himself is now acknowledging the failure of his stimulus program."

In his morning floor speech, McConnell also employed a new line Republicans are using to label Democratic efforts to restore the economy.

“Indeed, I think there is a growing consensus out there that far from improving the economy, the president has made it worse,” said McConnell.

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