The Sept. 5 headline “Ryan says U.S. isn’t better off” was accompanied by statistics from the U.S. Bureau of Labor to support that premise. Not mentioned is that from November 2008 through January 2009, the economy was in a free fall, shedding between 600,000 and 800,000 jobs a month.

Clearly, the economy is doing better now. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, corporate profits have surged an average of 51.8 percent under President Barack Obama, the best of any presidency since 1933.

If the American Jobs Act proposed by Obama on Sept. 8, 2011, was passed by the “do nothing to help the country in order to defeat Obama” Congress of Paul Ryan, job growth would have further accelerated and we’d all be better off.

Rich Oberfoell

Iowa City