Reacting to these disappointing numbers this morning, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said, “Americans are speaking out, and they want Washington to focus on jobs. But with each passing month, and each new jobs report, it becomes increasingly clear that while massive Washington spending is growing the size of government, it’s clearly not growing sustainable private-sector jobs. The trillion-dollar stimulus didn’t live up to promises made by the Obama administration and Democrats in Congress; the massive growth of the federal government didn’t result in a similar growth of jobs; and the maze of new regulations, health care mandates and taxes are having a predictable impact on the economy.”
House Republican Conference Chair Mike Pence responded, “The American people are hurting under the weight of the failed economic policies of this administration. On top of the borrowing, spending and bailouts, Democrats are poised to allow the biggest tax increase in American history to take effect on January 1, 2011. It’s time for a new direction to get this economy moving again. Congress should come back to Washington and vote immediately to ensure that there will be no tax increases on American families, small business owners, and family farms.”
Indeed, the $814 billion stimulus seems to have delivered little if any of what the Obama administration predicted back when it was passed in early 2009. White House economists Christina Romer and Jared Bernstein claimed that if the stimulus passed, unemployment wouldn’t exceed 8%. Vice President Joe Biden actually boasted, “[T]his is about getting this out and spent in 18 months to create 3.5 million jobs and . . . literally drop-kicks us out of this recession and we begin to grow again.” Yet, unemployment stubbornly remains at 9.6% and 3.3 million jobs have been lost since the President Obama signed the stimulus bill into law.
So what have Americans gotten from the stimulus? For one thing, hundreds of billions of dollars of debt, since none of the spending in the bloated bill was paid for. Thanks in part to stimulus spending, the Congressional Budget Office announced last night that the deficit for 2010 was nearly $1.3 trillion, “the second-worst mark since 1945,” according to Dow Jones. “The congressional scorekeeper said the total deficit recorded in the just completed fiscal year was only $125 billion less than the record high of $1.4 trillion set in fiscal 2009.” In other words, the two worst post-World War II deficits were last year and this year. Dow Jones also notes, “The deficit in fiscal 2010 was equal to 8.9% of U.S. gross domestic product, well above the long-run target of 3% that is considered by most economists to be sustainable.”
Meanwhile, The Washington Post reports today on what some of that deficit spending has gone towards. Included is the ZOMBIE STIMULUS. On “The federal government last year sent about 89,000 checks of $250 each to dead or incarcerated people through the Obama administration's economic stimulus program, according to a watchdog report. The Social Security Administration distributed about $13 billion to 52 million eligible beneficiaries in the form of $250 checks as part of the economic recovery program. The program cost a total of $814 billion.” Specifically, the Post reports, “About 71,600 recipients were dead before the SSA certified their payments, receiving a total of $18 million, according to the report. An additional 17,300 inmates received a total of $4.3 million. Most of the inmates were eligible to receive checks because the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act prohibited payments only to people incarcerated in the three months before it passed, which was November 2008 to January 2009. The SSA maintains conviction records and is normally required to suspend payments to incarcerated beneficiaries.”
So with unemployment higher than 9.5% for the longest stretch since the Great Depression, continuing job losses, and anemic private sector job growth, Americans are being reminded again today that President Obama and Democrats preferred economic solutions, growing government and deficit spending, simply aren’t working. Instead, Americans are faced with record deficits, record debt, and the news that millions of dollars of stimulus money are going to dead people and convicts.
Each month, the country awaits improvement and each month, it is disappointed. There is more to unemployment than just one number. A further breakdown of unemployment by the numbers can be seen below:
- $1,161,000,000,000: The total cost of the Democrats “stimulus.” CBO estimates the cost of the bill will reach $814 billion and interest on the debt for the bill will be at least $347 billion.
- 9.6%: The unemployment rate for the month of September.
- 17: The number of consecutive months that unemployment has been above 9 percent.
- 14: The number of consecutive months that unemployment has been above 9.5 percent—the longest such span since the Great Depression.
- 95,000: The number of jobs lost in the month of September.
- 17.1%: The rate of underemployment in September. This accounts for the unemployed, those unable to find full-time work and those discouraged from looking for work.
- 14,767,000: The number of unemployed Americans looking for work in the month of September.
Tags: Democrats, failed agenda, unemployment, deficits, 2010, Mike Pence, Mitch McConnell, simulus, dead people, incarcerated people Zombies To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
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