Friday’s jobs report showed the unemployment rate “ticked up to 8.3 percent.” That makes July the 42nd consecutive month with unemployment above eight percent and this “the weakest economic recovery since World War II.”

Stanford economist John B. Taylor examined July’s unemployment report and said the economic recovery under President Obama has been “a real tragedy.” Trillions of dollars in deficit spending, excessive new government regulations and red tape, the government takeover of health care, and the ever-present threat of tax hikes have led to what Taylor calls “a recovery in name only.”

More and more economists now say stopping all of President Obama’s tax hikes is necessary to prevent further damage to our struggling economy. The House passed a bipartisan bill to do so, ensuring no small business or middle class family would see their  taxes rise; but so far, the president and Senate Democrats aren’t listening.

Instead, with millions still out of work and small business optimism declining, Democrats are threatening to raise taxes on all Americans unless they get a small business tax hike that Ernst & Young says will destroy more than 700,000 jobs.

In other words: Democrats propose tanking the economy or tanking the economy. And so far, they seem perfectly fine with allowing the ‘sequester’ defense cuts to devastate our national security too.

Former Congressional Budget Office Director Douglas Holtz-Eakin says Democrats’ threat is “madness.” And he’s not alone.

Speaker John Boehner released a list of 88 economists who say the looming tax hikes are “patently irresponsible” and “misguided in the extreme” – and must be stopped. Several other economists say raising taxes would be a blow to our already weak economy. Many Democrats agree.

But so far, only the House has voted to stop all of the tax hikes and replace the ‘sequester’ defense cuts with common-sense spending cuts and reforms.

Click here for a closer look at the Republican and Democratic tax plans, and visit jobs.GOP.gov for more information on the Republican plan for removing government barriers to job growth.