ARLINGTON, VA -- President Obama noted the lackluster April jobs report pegging the nation's unemployment rate at 8.1 percent at a high school here in suburban Washignton before pivoting to speak about student loan interest rates.

He characterized as “good news” the fact that the unemployment “ticked down again” from 8.2 to 8.1 percent, but added that his administration still has more work to do.

“After the worst economic crisis since the great depression our businesses have now created more than 4.2 million new jobs over the last 26 months. More than 1 million jobs in the last 6 months alone. So that's the good news, but there's still a lot of folks out of work, which means we have to do more," Obama said.

He said that one of the things the government could do to help the economy was keep interest rates on federal Stafford student college loans from spiking from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent in July.

“Congress also has to do its part. Right now that means preventing the interest of student loans from doubling which would make it harder for you to pay for college next year.”

He also criticized House Republicans who passed a bill last week that would have paid for an extension of the low student loan rates by taking money out of a women’s preventive care fund established through the health care reform law.

“House Republicans are saying they’re only going to prevent these rates from doubling if they can cut things like preventive health for women instead,” he said. 

Obama encouraged the students to take to social networks like Facebook and Twitter to pressure their members of Congress to vote to keep rates down.

“I want you to send a message to Congress. Tell them don’t double my rate. You should call them, you should email them, write on their Facebook page, Tweet them… teach your parents how to tweet,” he joked.

The president’s visit to the Washington-Lee High School in the D.C. suburbs was his first of two trips to the crucial swing state of Virginia in as many days.

Mitt Romney set some high standards for himself in reaction to Friday's lackluster jobs report from April.

The economy added 115,000 jobs in April, a number that fell below expectations and prompted worries of a slowdown in hiring. While the unemployment rate fell to 8.1 percent, that was driven in part by people leaving the workforce.

Those numbers carry political significance, with only six months left until the election. In separate reactions to the April figures, Romney set standards that he thought represented what's acceptable.

The Romney standard, in short, would see the economy add 500,000 jobs per month. The former Massachusetts governor said that an unemployment rate above 4 percent is unacceptable.

"We should be seeing numbers in the 500,000 jobs created-per-month. This is way, way, way off from what should happen in a normal recovery," Romney said this morning on Fox News.

At an afternoon event in Pittsburgh, Romney said of the news that the unemployment rate had fallen to 8.1 percent: "Normally, that would be cause for celebration, but anything near 8 percent or over 4 percent is not cause for celebration."

The lowest the unemployment rate hit over the last decade was 4.4 percent, last achieved in May of 2007.

The high point of jobs added in the last decade came in May 2010, when the economy added 516,000 nonfarm payroll positions.

The Obama administration has decided to reject a requested permit to build the controversial, transnational Keystone KL Pipeline, a decision angering Republicans in Congress and allaying the concerns of environmental activists.

Multiple sources confirmed Wednesday to NBC News that the administration had decided to reject the request to build the massive oil pipeline, a project upheld by Republicans in Congress (along with some Democrats) as a potential boon to job creation.

Neither the White House or the State Department is confirmation that a decision has been made.  The White House Press Secretary said the administration may have more information on the pipeline later today. 

Reaction from Capitol Hill and environmental groups was swift and pointed.

A spokesman for House Speaker Boehner said the decision "is about to destroy tens of thousands of American jobs and sell American energy security to the Chinese. The president won't stand up to his political base even to create American jobs."

But the executive director of the Sierra Club, Michael Brune, said today's announcement represents a "strong clear-cut powerful victory for environmentalists."

The Obama administration has been struggling with the Keystone XL issue since November of last year, when the State Department announced it had placed its permit decision on hold until more environmental reviews could be completed. 

The pipeline then became part of the fight at the of 2011 to extend the payroll tax holiday. As part of the deal to extend the expiring tax cut, the president agreed to make a decision on the KeystoneXL Pipeline within two months upon signing the law. Obama is also required to submit a letter to Congress within 15 days of making the formal decision explaining why the pipeline is not "in the national interest."

Sources on both sides of the issue were careful to note that TransCanada, the company applying for the permit to build the pipeline, is not barred by this decision from submitting a new application for a pipeline at a later date.

Des Moines - As Republican candidates crisscross Iowa seeking last-minute support, the Democratic Party is ignoring the field and focusing on front-runner Mitt Romney.

Today in a Des Moines press conference the DNC turned to a former factory worker who lost his job in the 1990’s to attack what it calls Mitt Romney “job killing record” in the private sector.

Randy Johnson, a former union official at an Indiana paper plant that Bain Capital purchased and then sold after labor discussions broke down in 1995 said of Romney, “I really feel that he didn’t care about the workers.”

Johnson said he’s telling his story now to let voters decide for themselves whether Romney should be president.

Now employed by the United Steelworkers Union in Pittsburgh, Johnson admitted Bain likely acted legally in its dealings with Ampad, but he’s accusing Romney of getting rich at the expense of workers.

“They let Ampad go bankrupt and they made 100 million…tell me there’s nothing wrong with that.”

This is not the first time Johnson’s story has been used as a political weapon against Mitt Romney. In 1994 Democrats used Johnson’s story in television ads attacking Romney during his campaign against then incumbent Sen. Edward Kennedy.

Romney’s 14-year tenure at Bain has been a frequent target of attack from the Obama re-election team and his Republican rivals.

Romney claims during his time at the firm Bain created a net total of 100,000 jobs, but he’s also acknowledged not all of the investments have worked out.

“We invested in over 100 different businesses,” he said last month on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,”  “and in those businesses, many were successful, added lots and lots of jobs. Some were not successful. That is the nature of free enterprise.”

On the campaign trail Romney argues that private sector experience is what’s needed to turn around the economy.

By msnbc.com's Tom Curry:  How will Friday’s depressing employment report affect Sunday’s debt limit talks between President Obama and congressional leaders?

Too early to tell for sure but consider how bad the news was: with 14.1 million seeking work and unable to find it, there are now 5.6 more people unemployed than three summers ago, in June of 2008.

At first blush the reaction was true to form – party leaders blamed their opponents and reverted to their economic dogma – seeming to harden their positions going into Sunday’s parley.

Republicans argued that the moribund economy cannot tolerate any tax increases, saying such a move would siphon off money that might be used for spending and investment.

“As we address the debt limit increase we shouldn’t do so in a way that raises taxes and impedes the ability of small businesses to create jobs and get people back to work,” said House Majority Leader Eric Cantor.

In a mirror image, Dems used the new jobs data as evidence that no, really, it is spending cuts that would further depress the sickly economy – even though big reductions in spending are at the heart of what Obama and congressional leaders are negotiating about on Sunday.

A leading Democrat, House Budget Committee ranking member Rep. Chris Van Hollen told NBC’s Chuck Todd, “The disappointing jobs numbers this morning underscore what a lot of us have been saying, which is that even as we work to come up with a plan to reduce the deficit over the next ten years, we (should) do nothing in the short term to harm the economy – and deep, immediate cuts would do just that.”

So in Sunday’s talks, Obama and House Speaker John Boehner will find themselves squeezed even more tightly between the true believers in their own ranks.

How can future deficits be reduced if most GOP members resist raising more revenue either through higher tax rates or by cutting deductions and credits – most of which go to middle-and upper-income people?

And conversely – how can deficits be reduced without cutting spending, which at least in the short term, most Democratic members resist doing, except in defense?

So instead of the “deep, immediate cuts” that Van Hollen warned against, Obama and Boehner could try to design a plan that made smaller cuts in the next year or two and deeper cuts starting in say, 2014 or 2015. And likewise they could propose revenue increases that would take effect only in 2014 and 2015.

But the question then would be: would bond market investors find such a plan credible in reducing the government’s growing debt burden?

Van Hollen seemed to reject one idea that has been much discussed in recent days as part of the debt/deficit parley – changing the inflation index used to cost of living adjustments for Social Security recipients.

“I’m not saying we’re going to tinker with COLA,” he told Todd.

Von Hollen reverted to the familiar Democrat argument: income tax rates, at least for upper-income people, ought to be lifted to where they were when Bill Clinton left office.

He also said people earning over $500,000 a year should begin to have their itemized deductions phased out.  

A deduction limiting proposal similar to what Van Hollen described would raise $1.1 trillion over ten years, according to the Congressional Budget Office. It would affect about one out of every four taxpayers.