The economy added 216,000 jobs in the last month, but because we need about 150,000 jobs a month to keep up with population increases, this is only a net increase of 66,000 jobs.

This is certainly good news, but to put a serious dent in unemployment, we need to accelerate this.  At this rate, it will still take us several years to get back to 4-5 percent.

Over the past 18 to 24 months, we’ve seen a pattern.  When the government concentrates on job growth policy, we get a reversal, we get job destruction.  As we spent the stimulus money, unemployment went  up to 10 percent, and now that we’ve stopped, unemployment is coming back down.

I’m cautiously optimistic, but we have a long way to go before we get back to what is considered normal. The government needs to live within its means and not interfere with entrepreneurs.