A Failed Stimulus, a Wrecked Budget
Washington, DC,
June 24, 2010
One year ago today, President Obama signed into law the most bitterly partisan tax and spend plan in decades – the so-called "Stimulus" to create jobs and help pull the U.S. out of recession through massive government borrowing, spending, and manipulation of markets. Not a single Republican voted for this monstrosity of a bill, nor were Republican ideas considered or allowed to be debated on the floor of the House. One year ago today, the unemployment rate in Texas was 6.5 percent. Today, the unemployment rate in Texas is 8.3 percent. Last year, President Obama said that his bill would create 269,000 new jobs for Texas within a year. Since then Texas has instead lost 167,600 jobs. The good news for Texans and the bad news for America is that the Lone Star state is doing far better than the nation as a whole. When Obama signed his Recovery Act into law on this day last year, national unemployment was 7.6 percent. The President promised that his stimulus bill would hold unemployment to less than 8.2 percent nationallly. But in the year since it has soared over 10 percent and in fact is much higher, as more and more workers without jobs are being removed from the roles as their unemployment benefits expire. The total unemployment numbers including those who have given up looking for full-time work are now estimated at a ghastly 17.3 percent. In real numbers, a total of 2,873,300 more Americans are out of work than on this date last year, even using the lower 10 percent figure. And the cost of this failure is truly staggering. The President is spending so much more money than we have that in ten years the federal debt will be 77 percent of America’s Gross Domestic Product, our total national income. The work before Congress is clear. The Administration has spent just one-third of the stimulus pork to date. The House and Senate should repeal the legislation, and return the unspent funds to the U.S. Treasury. America’s economy is failing under the Democrats, but America’s spirit is still strong. The voters have now seen the results of out-of-control liberal spending, and the day of reckoning is near for those who helped pass this financial disaster. A footnote:President Obama today said that "all projects received funding based solely on their merits." The President then went on to say that there was going to be "some story" of "some money" that was going to be misspent. The President’s words seem rather empty, considering that a steakhouse in Missouri received $100,000 so it could build a martini bar, and $3.4 million went toward helping turtles cross a highway in Florida, and $6 million for a snowmaking facility in Minnesota. These are just a few examples of stories, lots of ‘em, that show just how out of touch President Obama and his Administration are. Maybe it’s the wasteful spending projects like the ones listed above that have a mere 6 percent of Americans believing that the stimulus has actually created jobs. |