Laying the blame for everything on the Bush administration, Vice President Biden told an audience of supporters that the 8 million jobs lost since the recession began are gone forever:

Appearing at a fundraiser with Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wisc.) in Milwaukee, the vice president remarked that by the time he and President Obama took office in 2008, the gross domestic product had shrunk and hundreds of thousands of jobs had been lost.

"We inherited a godawful mess," he said, adding there was "no way to regenerate $3 trillion that was lost. Not misplaced, lost."

Claims for jobless benefits fell by the largest number in two months last week, but were still high enough to signal weak job growth. Meanwhile, the Senate on Thursday failed to pass an extension of unemployment benefits.

Biden said today the economy is improving and noted that in the past four quarters, there has been 4 percent growth in the economy. Over the last five months, more than 500,000 private sector jobs were created.

"We know that's not enough," the vice president said.

The problem isn't that we've lost 8 million jobs. The problem is that the Obama administration has initiated policies that have exacerbated the problem, while failing to unleash the economy so that entrepreneurs will be able to create new jobs to replace the ones that are lost.

The slack in employment can be eliminated only when capital flows freely to those who can make the best use of it - creating the businesses and the wealth that will fill the needs of society and consumers.

But the only growth sector in the economy is government - a sign that they just don't get it in the White House.