- House: Yes vote: 146 House Republicans and 147 Democrats; No vote: 91 Republicans and 41 Democrats.
-Senate: Yes vote: 45 Democrats, 1 independent and 14 Republicans; No vote: 30 Republicans, 5 Democrats and 1 independent.
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| "Obama: The Real Gambling Man" Same People, Same Game, Same Problems Archived Toon from Feb. 04, 2010 |
Votes on payroll tax extension likely today. The House and Senate leaders prepared for final votes Friday for a #150 billion economic package.
Senate resumed consideration of S. 1813, the highway bill. If cloture is not invoked then they will vote on the nomination of Jesse Furman for US District Judge, Southern District of New York. Then the Senate will vote on conference report extending the payroll tax cut, H.R. 3630.
ABC News writes, “Three years ago, President Obama signed into law the famed stimulus package known as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. ‘Stimulus’ is such a dirty word today that hardly anybody in the White House says it publicly anymore. But for old time’s sake, let’s go to the highlights reel:”
Indeed, it’s quite instructive to look at the “highlights” of the nearly $1 trillion stimulus passed by the Democrat Congress at the urging of President Obama. Three years after Obama promised, “It's a plan that will save or create up to 4 million jobs over the next two years” and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) boasted, “This bill creates 3.5 million jobs,” there are 5 million fewer workers employed in the United States than White House economists Christina Romer and Jared Bernstein predicted. Almost half a million jobs have been lost since the day Obama signed the bill.
Three years ago, Romer and Bernstein also issued their now-famous chart and predicted that unemployment would not exceed 8% with Democrats’ stimulus plan. But unemployment has stood above 8% for 36 months and “CBO projects that the unemployment rate will remain above 8 percent until 2014.”
Newspaper editorials have been slamming the stimulus bill for three years. The New York Post said during the summer of 2010 that “[i]t was an $800 billion misadventure that will be wreaking havoc on the economy for years to come.” Months after the bill was signed, The Denver Post declared, “[W]e've learned not to trust the government's accounting on the massive stimulus bill just yet. The jobs figures are wildly misleading . . . .” Last fall, The Richmond Times-Dispatch snarked, “The stimulus did less good than earlier estimates suggested. There's a big shock.” When President Obama and Democrats were demanding another stimulus bill last year, The Wall Street Journal asked, “Why did his first jobs plan—the $825 billion stimulus—so quickly result in the need for another jobs plan?” And the Orange County Register wondered, “Considering the indisputable flop of 2009's massive infusion of tax money, why would spending less this time fare better?” The Daytona Beach News-Journal concluded, “[T]he $800 billion Stimulus I bill passed by Congress in 2009 did not live up to its billing. Despite this massive infusion of deficit spending, the economy has continued to sputter.” And considering the Solyndra debacle, the money for which came from the stimulus bill, Obama’s hometown Chicago Tribune wrote in September, “If the federal government can't responsibly manage the money it's doling out in the name of economic stimulus, then it has no business doling out the money — period . . . .”
Amazingly reports are still coming out about the various failures of the stimulus. YESTERDAY, NBC in San Francisco reported, “Three years ago politicians in Washington and here in the Bay Area touted the urgent need for the federal stimulus package . . . . The NBC Bay Area Investigative Unit spent weeks analyzing government stimulus data, in partnership with the nonprofit investigative news group ProPublica. . . . But our computer analysis shows money approved doesn’t always mean money spent—or jobs created. According to the latest government data, 19 Bay Area stimulus projects funded in 2010 or earlier have not broken ground. That totals more than $70 million. They haven’t created jobs, either. We found two projects approved more than two years ago that have not even started. . . . ‘Give the money to help people find jobs,’ said unemployed San Jose resident Harry Ahn, ‘and I would be expecting more people to actually be finding jobs.’”
As Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said in his speech at CPAC 2012 last week, “Three years ago this month President Obama signed a trillion dollar Stimulus bill that we were told would keep unemployment below 8 percent and drop-kick us out of the recession.
“How’d that work out? Well, unemployment has now stood above eight percent for 36 months. Three years straight. If you lose a job in the Obama economy, you can now expect to spend 40 weeks looking for a new one. Fewer people have jobs today than when the Stimulus was signed. And more than three years into this presidency, there are still 5.6 million fewer jobs in this country than when the Great Recession began. Among African Americans, unemployment is nearly 14 percent. Among Hispanics, it’s 10.5 percent. Among recent college grads, it’s more than 13 percent. For those who need help the most, this President’s economic policies have done the least. So if I were President Obama, I’d keep the champagne on ice. This is not an economy to be proud of.”
Tags: Washington, DC, US Senate, US House, stimulus bill, results, failures, payroll tax cut, doc fix, unemployment benefits To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
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