HOUSE Republican Leader John Boehner

Democrats’ $1 Trillion “Stimulus:” Toilets in New York, Buses in New Hampshire, But Where Are the Jobs?

It’s been nearly half a year since the President signed the $1 trillion “stimulus” that was supposed to create jobs “immediately.”  As recently as June, the Vice President was still defending the “stimulus,” insisting that it provided “an initial big jolt to give the economy a real head start.”  In fact, on the day the Democrats rushed through their 1,100 page “stimulus,” Speaker Pelosi said: “[a]fter all of the debate, this legislation can be summed up in one word, ‘jobs’.”  But with unemployment continuing to climb closer and closer to the 10 percent mark - and in 15 states, already exceeding it - the American people are asking a simple question: “where are the jobs?”

The Democrats’ haven’t been able to answer that question.  Instead, they’ve repeated their claim that “if we hadn’t done that stimulus package, the unemployment rate would be even higher,” as Speaker Pelosi said this past Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union” - even though when the Democrats rushed the 1,100 page “stimulus” package through the Congress, they promised that the “stimulus” would keep the unemployment rate from going above 8 percent.  So if the “stimulus” isn’t creating jobs, where is all that money going?

Well, in New Hampshire, the “stimulus” just bought four new commuter buses, as an editorial in yesterday’s New Hampshire Union-Leader pointed out:

The U.S. Department of Transportation announced on Friday that it is sending $2 million in stimulus money to the state DOT to buy four buses…Two of the buses will replace C&J buses currently in service on I-95.  C&J President Jim Jalbert confirmed to us in an interview Friday that his company would make no new hires in relation to receiving those buses.  The other two buses will be used by Boston Express to add new service.  The number of new jobs created?  ‘As many as four or five,’ Jalbert said.  They will all be bus drivers.  Two million dollars to create ‘four or five’ bus-driver jobs? That’s as much as $500,000 per job.

And in New York, “stimulus” money is being spent on new toilets, as yesterday’s New York Post reported:

The feds are spending tens of millions of stimulus dollars to repair and build toilets across the nation, in an outflow of taxpayer funds that critics have branded ‘potty pork.’…In New Mexico alone, the feds are spending $2.8 million for toilets in national forests.

The fundamental problem with the “stimulus” is that it relies on government largess, not small businesses, to create jobs - throwing literally a trillion dollars over ten 10 years at the economy in the hopes that some of it sticks.  But the engine of job creation in the United States is small business, not government.  And the “stimulus” does little to nothing to help small businesses get back on their feet and start creating jobs.

The same folks who brought you the “stimulus” are now attempting to rush a government takeover of health care.  In fact, Speaker Pelosi recently said that: “the health care bill is a stimulus package.”

But after the disastrous results of the Democrats’ first “stimulus” package, Congress has an obligation to get an overhaul of health care right.  As House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-OH) recently stated: “Speaker Pelosi and her colleagues in the Democratic leadership need to scrap this costly plan” and “start over with a bipartisan bill” that will provide affordable, high quality health insurance for all Americans.

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At a Cost of $8 Million per Job, “Stimulus” Funds Yields 50 Jobs in New Hampshire

Today’s New Hampshire Union-Leader reported that “More than $400 million in federal stimulus money has come to New Hampshire this year” which has yielded “a total of 50 jobs…34 of them full time.”  That works out to $8 million per job created in New Hampshire by the Democrats’ $1 trillion “stimulus.”  At that rate, the Democrats would have to spend $16,000,000,000,000 to create 2 million jobs nationwide, roughly the number of jobs that have been lost in America since the President signed the “stimulus” into law in February.

But those “stimulus” jobs in New Hampshire are temporary, not permanent, as the Union-Leader also noted:

After a tough budget year, both Democrats and Republicans are wary of creating jobs that have to be funded long into the future.  Members of both parties said they expect the jobs to end when the funding ends in 27 months.

So the “stimulus” is spending billions of dollars of money we don’t have to prop up government bureaucracy that’s failing to create an environment of economic growth and job creation.  It seems the only thing the “stimulus” has succeeded at is deepening the federal deficit, which stands at more than $1 trillion so far this year.  If anything the “stimulus” is making matters worse, not better.  As the Union-Leader editorial page noted last month: “The stimulus is a joke. We are tossing our money into a giant pit. Actually, we are paying a handful of people to toss our money into a giant pit.”

As House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-OH) recently said on Fox News Sunday:

The way to help the economy grow is to help small businesses and American families keep more of what they earn because at the end of the day, they’re the ones who can get the economy going again.  The stimulus was supposed to be about jobs, jobs, and jobs, and the fact is its turned in to nothing but spending, spending and more spending, on all big government bureaucracy…The real question is where are the jobs?  You can’t spend $800 billion of taxpayer money and not create jobs when you say that’s what the goal was.

The “stimulus” hasn’t created the jobs the President promised because it relies on big-government spending instead of helping small businesses, which are the foundation of job creation in America.  House Republicans offered a plan to let small businesses and families keep more of what they earn, but Democrats ignored it, took a go-it-alone approach, and passed their trillion-dollar big government plan anyway.   And it’s the American middle class that is paying the price.

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Millions Spent on “Stimulus” Road Signs, But Where Are the Jobs?

This morning on “Good Morning America,” ABC’s Senior Congressional Correspondent Jonathan Karl reported that the Democrats’ $1 trillion “stimulus” is spending millions of taxpayer dollars on signs touting what Democrats would like Americans to believe is its success - some costing as much as $3,000 per sign.   Jonathan Karl noted that: “New Jersey, for example, is getting $650 million in stimulus money for roads and has spent only $225,000 so far, $12,000 of that on signs.” 

Karl also reported that: “Six months after the stimulus was passed, less than 10 percent of the money has been spent and the unemployment rate is still climbing.  That’s prompted calls from some Democrats for yet another stimulus and complaints that some of the money that’s already gone out the door has been wasted.”

House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-OH) has criticized the Democrats’ trillion-dollar “stimulus,” as the Washington Post reported this morning:  

Boehner told reporters that Obama’s policies will ‘destroy jobs rather than create jobs…Our nation’s economy has taken a beating,’ he said.  ‘The answer isn’t more taxes, more spending, more mandates and more borrowing from China, the Middle East, our kids and grandkids.’  In an earlier statement relayed by the Republican National Committee, the House leader said the administration’s effort ‘clearly isn’t working.’  He added, ‘The people of Ohio — like people all over America — have a right to know: Where are the jobs?’

After passing a $1 trillion “stimulus” bill that was supposed to be all about jobs, the American people have seen millions of their tax dollars spent on a salt marsh mouse in San Francisco, millions towards a website promoting the “stimulus”, and millions towards “stimulus” signs - yet after all of this spending, after all of the debt incurred, where are the jobs? 

It’s a good question - and one the Democrats can’t answer.

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As Unemployment Continues to Rise, Democrats Spend Millions on a Website That Isn’t Working

Late last night, ABC News’ Senior Political Reporter Rick Klein reported that: “$18 million in additional funds are being spent to redesign the Recovery.gov website.”  That’s in addition to the $84 million the Administration has already obligated towards Recovery.gov, bringing the total spent on Recovery.gov to more than $100 million.

And, as this morning’s Washington Examiner reported, that additional $18 million has an interesting connection to House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD):

ABC reports this morning that the Maryland firm Smartronix has won what seems like an enormous $18 million contract to re-design the Recovery.gov website…The company appears to have just one important political connection: according to FEC records, Smartronix president, Mohammed Javaid, vice president Alan Parris, and partner John Parris have together given $19,000 to House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D) since 1999.

Back in February, President Obama said that: “every dime of the spending will be made available to the public on Recovery.gov so every American can see where their tax dollars are going.”  He also said that, “Ultimately, this is your money, and you deserve to know where it’s going and how it’s spent.”  There’s only one problem: the Administration’s website doesn’t actually show were the “stimulus” money is going, as the Washington Times noted in April:

Concerns are piling up that www.Recovery.gov, the Obama administration’s online clearinghouse for stimulus- spending information, isn’t producing the kind of transparency it promised.  Obama said the Web site would provide a way for taxpayers to track and monitor how the $700 billion in stimulus money was being spent, yet more than two months after some of the funds were released, the Web site offers little detail on where the money is going.

Little has changed since then.  In April when discussing proposed budget cuts, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said that: “only in Washington, D.C. is $100 million not a lot of money.  It is where I’m from.  It is where I grew up.  And I think it is for hundreds of millions of Americans.”

With unemployment nearing 10 percent nationally and more than two million Americans out of work since the Democrats rushed through their $1 trillion “stimulus,” $100 million sure is a lot of money to spend on a website that isn’t working.

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As “Stimulus” Funds Go To Prop Up Government Bureaucracy, Where Are the Jobs?

This morning the Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report to Congress on the status of the Democrats’ 1,100 page $1 trillion “stimulus” spending bill they enacted earlier this year, and the results aren’t pretty, As USA Today reported today:

Some states, for example, are not sending transportation funding to the most economically distressed areas, and they are using education funds to prevent layoffs rather than fund innovative new programs, the report says…

The stimulus law requires states to give priority to transportation projects in economically distressed areas.  But because states needed to choose projects quickly, many either didn’t consider distressed areas until late in the planning process or used their own criteria rather than the federal requirements, the GAO found.

The following chart produced in the GAO report gives a visual representation of where the money for fiscal year 2009 is going to be spent:

The GAO report focused on “16 states and certain localities in those jurisdictions as well as the District of Columbia-representing about 65 percent of the U.S. population and two-thirds of the intergovernmental federal assistance available.”  Some key excerpts of the report follow

• “In the 4 months since enactment, the federal Treasury has paid out approximately $29 billion to states and localities, which is about 60 percent of payments estimated for fiscal year 2009.”
• Only 41.1 percent of Ohio’s transportation funding has even been obligated, let alone spent; in Massachusetts, that number is even lower: only 39.6 percent has been obligated.
• Only 6.3 percent of highway funds have been obligated for new construction of pavement projects; only 2.6 percent of highway funds have been obligated for new bridges. An overwhelming amount of the highway funds have been used for “pavement improvement” - i.e., “make work” projects that won’t spur economic growth.

Transparency is also lacking under the “stimulus,” as the GAO reported: “current guidance does not achieve the level of accountability needed to effectively respond to Recovery Act risks.”  And the protectionist measures inserted in the “stimulus” bill are driving up the cost of projects, as the GAO noted: “agencies may have difficulty in finding an adequate selection of goods and materials for improving energy efficiency that meet the ‘Buy American’ requirement and are competitively priced.”

Jared Bernsetin, the chief economic adviser to Vice President Joe Biden claimed in an interview yesterday with  Bloomberg News that the “stimulus” is “working, it’s demonstrably working.”  But with unemployment over 10 percent in many states - including in Ohio, where the Vice President will appear tomorrow to tout the “success” of the “stimulus” - Americans are wondering: where are the jobs?

As Leader Boehner has noted, the entire “stimulus” process has been absurdly slow-moving and ineffective in one state after another - just as Republicans warned it would be last winter, when they called for an economic recovery bill based on fast-acting tax relief for small businesses and working families rather than spending on slow-moving government programs.

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After a $1 Trillion “Stimulus” the Question Remains: Where are the Jobs?

The American economy has shed more than 2 million jobs since the President signed the “stimulus” bill that was supposed to be all about jobs.  But as House Republican Leader Boehner (R-OH) has pointed out, the so-called “stimulus” has “turned in to nothing but spending, spending and more spending.”  The President and Democrats in Congress promised that unemployment wouldn’t rise above 8 percent if Congress rushed to enact a 1,100 page, $1 trillion “stimulus” bill that no one had read - yet as the following chart from the House Republican Conference shows, unemployment has continued to surge ahead:

(The House GOP Conference chart is based on the same graph used by Dr. Christina Romer, the President’s top economic advisor, to sell the “stimulus” spending bill to the American people and Congress back in January.)

While the unemployment rate stands at 9.5 percent and rising nationally, many states face an even bleaker picture: as of May, sixteen states and the District of Columbia have unemployment rates that are in excess of 9.6 percent.  Ohio has a 10.8 percent unemployment rate; California’s is 11.5 percent; Oregon’s is 12.4 percent; and Michigan’s is 14.1 percent and climbing, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

And that may not even be the whole picture.  The broader unemployment rate hit 16.5 percent  in June, which the Wall Street Journal defines as those “who are neither working nor looking for work, but say they want a job and have looked for work recently; and people who are employed part-time for economic reasons, meaning they want full-time work but took a part-time schedule instead because that’s all they could find.”

Even Vice President Biden admitted this past weekend that “We misread how bad the economy was,” which may be the understatement of the century.  The fact is we’re spending money we don’t have on a “stimulus” that isn’t creating jobs. 

Any economic recovery begins with jobs.  As Larry Kudlow pointed out last night on CNBC:  “There isn’t going to be a real recovery until jobs start rising.”  The real problem is that: “Wages have flattened and private hours worked keep declining, and the Administration’s $800 billion fiscal stimulus package has failed to stimulate.”

One thing’s for certain: Democrats in Washington know how to spend money with reckless abandon.   What they don’t know how to do is create jobs for struggling middle class families.

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Fox News Highlights Boehner Web Video Featuring Ellie Mae the Job-Sniffing GOP Bloodhound

Last night Fox News’ “Special Report with Bret Baier” highlighted a web video released yesterday by House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-OH) about jobs and the Democrats’ trillion-dollar “stimulus.”

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Boehner, Westmoreland Unveil “Bloodhounds” Video Asking: Where Are the Jobs?

House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-OH) yesterday released a new web video targeting Washington Democrats’ trillion-dollar “stimulus” bill and asking “where are the jobs?” The tongue-in-cheek web video, inspired by a classic 1984 TV commercial by now-Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), features a job-sniffing GOP bloodhound named Ellie Mae and a down-home voiceover by Rep. Lynn Westmoreland (R-GA).

“This is a lighthearted web video, but the underlying point is no laughing matter,” Leader Boehner said.  “At a time when Americans are looking to Washington for leadership, the trillion-dollar ‘stimulus’ isn’t working.  Americans were promised the ‘stimulus’ would keep the unemployment rate from going above eight percent.  It’s now at 9.5 percent, and rising.  Where are the jobs?”

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“Stimulus” Fraught With Waste, Fraud, and Abuse, Says Sen. Coburn

Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) released a report today highlighting the extent of the waste, fraud, and abuse in President’s $1 trillion “stimulus” program.  Despite being signed into law less than 200 days ago, the “stimulus” has already failed to live up to the Administration’s promises that it would “save or create” millions of jobs and be implemented without wasting taxpayers’ money. 

So if the “stimulus” spending program isn’t creating jobs, where is the $1 trillion worth of spending going?  The Los Angeles Times reported this morning that:

Millions of dollars are going toward bicycle lockers, bike paths, walking trails and a skate park…One town in North Carolina is using stimulus funds to hire an administrator whose job will be to procure more stimulus funds.

Sen. Coburn’s report included 100 examples of “stimulus” waste, including:

• $3 million for a turtle crossing in northern Florida.
• $16 million on scarcely used rural bridges in Wisconsin.
• $840,000 for a bridge in Stevens Point, Wisconsin that carries 260 vehicles a day.
• $9.4 million to renovate a train station that has sat vacant for more than 30 years.
• $2.2 million to install skylights in Montana’s state-run liquor warehouse.
• $1 million dollars for an empty airport in Democratic Rep. John Murtha’s district.
• Money to study the impact wind farms have on the sage grouse population in Oregon.
• Social Security checks that have been mailed to thousands of dead people.

And it wouldn’t be a government project without signs taking credit for spending your money: “Road signs costing $300 each, [are] being placed at construction sites to alert motorists that the project is being paid for by the stimulus money,” the Associated Press reported.

When the Democrats were rushing their 1,100 page “stimulus” spending bill through the House - giving Members of Congress and the American people less than 12 hours to review the bill before Congress voted on it - House Republican Leader John Boehner said on the House Floor that: “a bill that was supposed to be about jobs, jobs, jobs has turned into a bill that is all about spending, spending and spending.” 

Perhaps Vice President Biden said it best, when he declared earlier this month that: “We know some of this money is going to be wasted…Some people are being scammed already.” 

That’s an understatement, Mr. Vice President.

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Administration Touts False ‘Stimulus’ Numbers

Wednesday marked that 100th day since the President signed the $1 trillion “stimulus” spending bill into law.  Earlier this month, The New York Times reported that: “the federal government has paid out less than 6 percent of the money.”  Now, it turns out that even that paltry number appears to have been too optimistic.  As the Times’ “Caucus Blog” pointed out in a post last night:

When the Obama administration issued its first quarterly report  on the $787 billion stimulus package earlier this month, prompting questions about the rate of stimulus spending, it overstated how much money had been actually been spent by roughly a third….

The adjusted figures mean that the value of stimulus activity at that time was actually only $35 billion or $36 billion - less than 5 percent of the $787 billion package.

CNBC’s Erin Burnett said today on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” that: “companies around the world tell me they see no evidence of stimulus spending in the U.S.”  In fact, unemployment claims have “increased by 1.6 million in the first 100 days of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.  That’s about 16,000 jobs lost per day,” CNS News reported today.

Moreover, the money that actually has been slated to be spent may not even be going to the communities that need it most, as the Associated Press reported two weeks ago: “Altogether, the government is set to spend 50 percent more per person in areas with the lowest unemployment than it will in communities with the highest.”

And on ABC’s Good Morning America program today, ABC News Senior White House Correspondent Jake Tapper reported that much of the ‘stimulus’ spending the Administration is taking credit for was actually appropriated before the ‘stimulus’ even passed:

The massive $1 trillion ‘stimulus’ - some $787 billion in new government spending, financed entirely by deficit spending which will cost the taxpayers over $300 billion in interest payments over the next ten years - has been emblematic of the Democrats’ irresponsible spending binge this year that includes a budget which will double the national debt in five years and triple it in ten.  The Democrats’ profligate spending will add at least $9 trillion to the national debt - which The Washington Post calls “simply unaffordable.”  CNBC’s Trish Regan asked this morning: “isn’t the issue here in fact that we don’t have a game plan to get out of what we’re doing here, it’s just spend, spend, spend?”

Trish Regan has it exactly right.   House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-OH) has said that the president’s budget and ’stimulus’ “spends too much, taxes too much, and borrows too much from our kids and grandkids.”  House Republicans have consistently offered better solutions - from a stimulus package that would have created twice the jobs at half the cost, to a responsible budget alternative that cuts taxes and reigns in government spending, to an American Energy Solution that would create jobs at home, protect our environment, and doesn’t raise taxes on a single American.

So, to sum up: the “stimulus” has placed America on a trajectory towards trillion-dollar deficits as far as the eye can see - without having much impact on economic growth or creating American jobs.  Some deal.

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