Obama’s Stimulus Was For Creating Jobs… Before It Was Against It
It all sounded good when spouted out of the mouths of MSM babes (Chris Matthews, Rachel Maddow and the like) and other children of our time (Joe Biden): $787 Billion to “jumpstart” the economy, and create MILLIONS of jobs!
But just like nearly all of Obama’s principles and promises — this one falls flat in a major way. 3.2 Million Americans have LOST their jobs SINCE the Democrats’ Stimulus Package was enacted into law.
Now in a vain effort to promote all of these alleged jobs “SAVED”, the Obama Administrations PR effort has fallen flat on its face and reinforced the notion that the Federal Government is at best inept. (h/t - Instapundit)
The chairman of the Obama administration’s Recovery Board is telling lawmakers that he can’t certify jobs data posted at the Recovery.gov Web site — and doesn’t have access to a “master list” of stimulus recipients that have neglected to report data.
Earl Devaney, the chairman of the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board, responded to questions posed by Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., late yesterday to say the board can’t vouch for the numbers submitted by recipients of stimulus funding.
“Your letter specifically asks if I am able to certify that the number of jobs reported as created/saved on Recovery.gov is accurate and auditable. No, I am not able to make this certification,” Devaney wrote, in a letter provided to ABC News.
Even powerful Congressional Democrats have faced the obvious and the embarrassing.
However, the website [Recovery.gov] is troubled with inaccuracies, and these problems are undermining its credibility. Wisconsin Democrat Rep. Dave Obey agrees: “The inaccuracies on recovery.gov that have come to light are outrageous and the Administration owes itself, the Congress, and every American a commitment to work night and day to correct the ludicrous mistakes.”
Given that stimulus award recipients are responsible for providing much of the information you see on Recovery.gov, it’s reasonable to expect some errors in the reporting process. Alas, some of the information seems to come out of thin air.
Here’s a novel idea, Congress. Stop all Stimulus spending for 9 months beginning NOW. Instead, institute an across the board payroll tax holiday (individuals & small businesses) for those same 9 months. Let’s see how that idea does for job creation versus your Stimulus’ 9 month track record. A more substantive tax cut in the 1980s led to 20 million jobs created and the greatest growth period since WWII. And, Reagan’s tax cuts led to deficit spending that in the context of Obama’s debt – would look like a savings plan now in comparison.
I know, wishful thinking. Washington doesn’t listen to We, The People anymore.
-Bruce (GayPatriot)
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Greta had Congresswoman Brown-Waite on last night who said that the whole Recovery.Gov site is a sham. She says it was established last February and then revised. She waived a highly redacted contract that shows 18 million was spent for a reworking of the site that the OMB claims should have cost under a million. You can see the interview here:
http://video.foxnews.com/11729829/reporting-recoverygov-to-recoverygov
I wonder if there will ever come a time when the liberals say that they just can’t carry the water for this peacock any more.
Comment by heliotrope — November 19, 2009 @ 8:48 am - November 19, 2009
Obama: the New Hoover.
And his hyperinflation hasn’t even hit yet. Want to know a neato synonym for “double-dip recession”? Here it is: OBAMA FAIL.
Nah, makes too much sense. Would be too helpful in restoring jobs and making people *not* dependent on government.
Comment by ILoveCapitalism — November 19, 2009 @ 9:36 am - November 19, 2009
To call Obama “the new Hoover” is an insult to Pres. Hoover, who actually accomplished great things in his career as an engineer, industrialist, philanthopist and as an effective administrator of international aid. In part he was betrayed by flawed economic theories and the fiscal models of that time as the Depression unfolded.
Obama had a shaky career as a law school educator, and wrote a book.
Comment by Ted B. (Charging Rhino) — November 19, 2009 @ 10:26 am - November 19, 2009
Ted, I totally agree with your middle sentence.
Hoover did have one great failure: his policies in handling the Recession of 1929. You say “he was betrayed by flawed economic theories”. I must slightly disagree there. Good economic theories were available, in Hoover’s time. They said the government should cut spending, cut deficits, cut taxes, cut regulation. It’s what they did to solve the Depression of 1920. Nobody ever hears of the Depression of 1920 – because they solved it so easily, with good policy. Hoover was an engineer, as you point out. His instinct was: engineer the economy. In other words: government intervention. And that is what caused the Recession of 1929 to become the Great Depression.
Conventional (i.e., left-liberal) history says that Roosevelt’s New Deal was somehow a break with Hoover’s policies. It wasn’t really. It was an intensification. Hoover raised spending, deficits, taxes and regulations in response to the Recession of 1929 – the wrong things to do. Roosevelt took those policies to a new level. Kind of like Bush boosting spending for 8 years, and running deficits in the $100-400B range; then Obama and the Democrats ratcheting deficits up to $1.5 trillion with Porkulus and bailouts.
But, bad economic policy aside, yes: Hoover was a very good man in many other ways. My comment was meant to address the conventional (again, left-liberal) history in which Hoover supposedly, allegedly did nothing but lame PR efforts while unemployment continued to climb. When in reality Hoover was pursuing interventionist policies, causing the problem. That is Obama today – on both points. We see the bad policies causing American unemployment, AND we see what history ought to record as some pretty lame PR efforts.
Comment by ILoveCapitalism — November 19, 2009 @ 11:03 am - November 19, 2009
Aargh, sorry – “Ted, I totally agree with your first sentence.”
Comment by ILoveCapitalism — November 19, 2009 @ 11:13 am - November 19, 2009
Bruce, good point. Here in Michigan, the liberal, pro-Obama, pro-Democrat Detroit Free Press had a bunch of reporters look at all 1800+ projects “awarded” Stimulus Spending Spree money and found that not only the job numbers were cooked… but nearly 75% of the projects either created a single job or no new jobs… and dividing all the real jobs created by the amount of money spent, each resulting new job cost US taxpayers $2.7million in Michigan.
http://www.freep.com/article/20091016/NEWS07/910160373/So-far–stimulus-contracts-aren%5C-t-big-boost-for-Michigan-jobs
And Michigan is supposedly ranked 9th in the Nation for jobs created under the Stimulus Spending Spree of Obama.
Comment by Michigan-Matt — November 19, 2009 @ 11:28 am - November 19, 2009
Humm…the Democrats are finally waking up…Hope & Change strikes again!!! The new slogan for Obama and Crew should be Spend and Fail. Who received the money for “reworking” the website – I would bet that following that money trail would lead to some people who are “friends” with Obama Child. Oh, and last but not least – Obama is the Poster Child for the failure of Affirmative Action. The country put someone in the Presidency who was not qualified; however, he was an ethnic minority. This Quota that ignorant Americans wanted to fill is backingfiring bigtime – the economy, corruption, etc.
Comment by Duffy - Native Intelligence — November 19, 2009 @ 11:34 am - November 19, 2009
What was it, $98,000,000,000 of porkulus money has been wasted?
If they have no idea how many jobs have been “saved or created”, how can they know where all the money is? And we’re supposed to trust them with our health?
Comment by ThatGayConservative — November 19, 2009 @ 11:39 am - November 19, 2009
However, the website [Recovery.gov] is troubled with inaccuracies, and these problems are undermining its credibility. Wisconsin Democrat Rep. Dave Obey agrees: “The inaccuracies on recovery.gov that have come to light are outrageous and the Administration owes itself, the Congress, and every American a commitment to work night and day to correct the ludicrous mistakes.”
As the saying goes, this isn’t a bug, it’s a feature.
No one in Chicago has an accurate list of government contractors, nor do they have a reconciliation. Money just vanishes into bribes and kickbacks to cronies.
Obama is steeped in this culture. Rahm Emanuel is steeped in this culture. Nancy Pelosi is steeped in this culture. These are criminals and thieves who think taxpayer money is their own private piggy bank, and who are using this money to make kickback payments to their supporters.
Furthermore, how many “jobs” created are like Tano, who admits flat-out that he is being paid by the Obama administration, laundered through the National Institutes of Health, to spread his propaganda and lies here?
Comment by North Dallas Thirty — November 19, 2009 @ 11:55 am - November 19, 2009
I’m with Rush on this one, Obama doesn’t want to create jobs. He hates the wealth builders and he wants more people dependent on government.
Comment by Leah — November 19, 2009 @ 12:06 pm - November 19, 2009
As someone who is self-employed, and pays the Self-Employment Tax, a payroll tax holiday (or even just a small payroll tax cut) would be the single best thing the government could do to help my own family. And to prod us into making one of those big-ticket purchases we’ve been putting off.
I doubt it will ever happen, though. It just makes too much sense.
Comment by Wesley M. — November 19, 2009 @ 12:14 pm - November 19, 2009
As a small business owner and professional, it really pisses-me-off that Wall Street and the “Big Labor” unions got the stimulus money…meanwhile I and my clients are frozen-out of the credit we need to survive. Commercial and personal lines-of-credit…and credit card limits which many really-small businesses use as lines-of-credit…have been sharply reduced, the rates have sky-rocketed, and bank credit has dried-up.
Meanwhile the speculators, arbitrageurs and the parasites are enjoying record profits…and don’t even have to lay-out those paper profits against last year’s losses since the TARP paid them for them. Heads I wind, Tails you lose… The argument “too big to fail” should have been used to forcibly break-up and de-capitalize the Wall Street just as monopolies are forcibly broken-up as dangers to the economy and good policy.
Sweat-equity Capitalism, yes…Casino Capitalism, never again.
Comment by ted B. — November 19, 2009 @ 1:40 pm - November 19, 2009
Except that it was never about creating jobs in the first place. It was about destroying jobs and enriching criminal liberals. It’s about making America into the third-world shit-hole Maobama and Tano believe it to be.
Comment by ThatGayConservative — November 19, 2009 @ 4:54 pm - November 19, 2009
I see today, that 3 pollsters now have Obama approval in the 40s. Imagine that.
Comment by Steven E. Kalbach — November 19, 2009 @ 5:59 pm - November 19, 2009
I see today, that 4 pollsters now have Obama approval in the 40s. Imagine that.
Comment by Steven E. Kalbach — November 20, 2009 @ 6:35 pm - November 20, 2009