February 16, 2012

Key Takeaways

 

• The stimulus is one of the single best examples of how the president’s policies have failed and made the economy worse because it spent money we didn’t have on jobs we didn’t get.

• Because policies like the stimulus have failed, the president cannot stand on his record and he has regrettably turned to the politics of envy and division.

• House Republicans have a Plan for America’s Job Creators—it’s time for the president and Democrats in the Senate to stop blocking our bipartisan jobs bills. 

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February 17^th 2012 marks the 3^rd anniversary of the president’s failed $1.2 trillion “stimulus” bill (CBO estimates the cost of the stimulus will reach $825 billion and interest on the debt for the stimulus will be at least $347 billion). President Obama promised the stimulus would “save or create 3.5 million jobs.” In reality, since the stimulus was enacted: America has shed 1.1 million jobs, poverty has reached an all time high, food stamp recipients have reached an all time high, the percentage of Americans even trying to find work is at a 30-year low, and the debt has increased by nearly $5 trillion. The president told us that if we spent more money, unemployment would be at six percent today. He got the trillion dollars of spending he asked for, but the American people didn’t get the jobs they were promised.

 

We Can’t Keep Spending Money We Don’t Have

 

President Obama’s unprecedented spending and borrowing began with his failed stimulus. After four years of trillion dollar deficits and more than $15 trillion of debt, the president still hasn’t learned his lesson. We can’t keep spending money we don’t have on jobs we never get.   

• While in the Senate, President Obama said, “Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt and a failure of leadership.”

• Immediately after reaching the White House, President Obama changed his tune, saying “We’ve got to spend some money now to pull us out of this recession.”

• Congressional Democrats gave the president what he wanted and approved the $1.2 trillion stimulus—without one vote from House Republicans—and passed the cost on to our children and grandchildren.

• Instead of creating jobs, and keeping unemployment below 8 percent as the Obama Administration promised, unemployment has averaged 9.3 percent since the stimulus was enacted and has been above 8 percent for 36 months, the longest such streak since the Great Depression. 

• The complete failure of the president’s stimulus is difficult to comprehend. With 1.1 million jobs lost since the stimulus was enacted (at a total cost of $1.172 trillion), the stimulus spent more than $1 million for every job America lost since it was enacted.

• Instead of acknowledging the failure of the stimulus, the president passed it off as a joke saying that “Shovel-ready was not as... uh... shovel-ready as we expected.”

• While the president laughs, America continues to suffer from the worst jobs crisis since the Great Depression. Our nation is borrowing almost 40 cents of every dollar it spends, much of it from China, and passing the bill on to our children and grandchildren.

• President Obama has not learned his lesson and his failed economic policies have made the economy worse. President Obama has increased the deficit by 180 percent from 2008 to 2011, presided over the three largest deficits in history, and piled up more debt than every president from George Washington to Bill Clinton combined. 

• He got the trillion dollars of spending he asked for, but the American people didn’t get the jobs they were promised.

 

And what did we get for all of that new debt (other than fewer jobs)? While the American people suffered, the federal government boomed. From 2008 to 2009, federal agencies experienced unprecedented growth in the first year under President Obama.

• Funding for the Department of Energy grew by 201 percent.
• Funding for the Department of Commerce grew by 168 percent.
• Funding for the Department of Labor grew by 163 percent.
• Funding for the Department of Education grew by 101 percent.
• Funding for the Environmental Protection Agency grew by 99 percent.
• Funding for the Department of Transportation grew by 65 percent.
• Funding for the International Assistance Programs grew by 44 percent.
• Funding for the Department of Interior grew by 40 percent.

 

A Date the President Wants the American People to Forget

While the president and his Democrat allies sold the stimulus as vital to keep unemployment below 8 percent, three years later the American people are still suffering from an unemployment rate that has been above 8 percent for a record 36 straight months. The president’s policies have failed and made the economy worse.  Below are some results that President Obama purchased and the American people want soon forget.

 

•  36: The number of consecutive months the unemployment rate has been at or above 8 percent. Prior to the enactment of the “stimulus,” unemployment had not been above 8 percent for 36 consecutive months since the Great Depression.

• 9.3%:  The average rate of unemployment from March 2009 (the month after the failed $1.2 trillion “stimulus” was enacted) through January 2012.

• 1,152,000: The number of net jobs the economy has shed from February 2009—when the Democrats’ “stimulus” was signed into law—through January 2011.

• 12,758,000: The number of unemployed Americans looking for work in the month of January.

• $3,378: The amount by which median household incomes dropped in 2010, falling to its lowest level since 1996.  Household income has fallen by 6.4 percent since 2007.

• 46,286,294: The number of Americans receiving food stamps as of November 2011, the most in any month in history. Today, 15 percent of Americans receive food stamps, an increase of 40 percent since President Obama took office.

• 1 out of 2: According to a December 2011 Census Bureau report, nearly half of all Americans are now classified as poor or low-income and the number of poor in America has reached an all-time high under President Obama.

• 13^th: Where the U.S. ranks in ease of starting a business in the world according to a World Bank report.  In 2007, the U.S. ranked 3^rd.

• $4.7 trillion:  Since President Obama’s inauguration on January 20, 2009, the national debt has increased by $4.7 trillion or 45 percent in just three years, from $10.6 trillion to nearly $15.4 trillion. 

• $1,327,000,000,000: The projected deficit in 2012. President Obama has the three largest deficits in U.S. history, and piled up more debt than every president from George Washington to Bill Clinton combined. 

• 89%:  Since President Obama took office, gas prices have increased by 89 percent according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

• 0:  The number of House Republicans who supported the president’s failed stimulus bill.

 

Stimulus Charge and Response

 

In December 2011, as the 3^rd anniversary approached, the president’s Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) released its eighth quarterly report on spending from the president’s failed $1.2 trillion “stimulus.” Unsurprisingly, the president’s appointed council touted the “success” of the stimulus, stating, “the Recovery Act has played a significant role in the turnaround of the economy that has occurred over the past two years.” White House spin aside, the facts show that the stimulus has failed to create anything except for the largest federal government in history and record debt.

 

CHARGE:  “As of the second quarter of 2011, the report estimates that the Recovery Act raised employment by 2.2 to 4.2 million jobs relative to what it otherwise would have been.”

RESPONSE:  The stimulus has not created jobs in the United States. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS)—the official government agency responsible for tallying employment stats—there have been 1.1 million net jobs lost since the stimulus was approved.

CHARGE:  “Employment shows the same pattern of an accelerating decline before the Recovery Act was passed followed by a significant improvement after.”

RESPONSE:  The Obama Administration said that unemployment would never reach 8 percent if the “stimulus” was enacted.  Unemployment (8.3 percent in January) has now been above 8 percent for 36 consecutive months, the longest span since the Great Depression. The percentage of able Americans working or even looking for work fell to a 30-year low of 63.7 percent in January 2012. If the labor force participation were at the same level today as it was before the recession started, unemployment would actually be 11.4 percent.

CHARGE:  “Many other economists and forecasters have estimated the impact of the Recovery Act. Most of those estimates are based on formal macroeconomic models…The estimate from the CEA model approach is within the CBO range and is similar to private sector estimates.”

RESPONSE:  The White House determines the impact of government stimulus spending by plugging numbers into a Keynesian “Multiplier Model.” This system simply multiplies the amount of dollars spent by the number of jobs the administration thinks the money should produce. This selective math does not consider actual employment statistics, and thus allows the White House to claim that the stimulus has created jobs even though the number of employed Americans is less than when the stimulus was approved in 2009.

CHARGE:  “Following implementation of the ARRA (stimulus), the trajectory of the economy changed significantly.”

RESPONSE:  Rather than seeing a dramatic positive change in the nation’s economic trajectory, Americans are experiencing a slow lurch out of the recession that has been made worse by President Obama’s disastrous economic policies. Under the economic policies of President Obama, the United States economy has been growing at its slowest rate since the Great Depression. According the Bureau of Economic Analysis, quarterly growth since President Obama took office has averaged an anemic 1.4 percent. By comparison, quarterly growth averaged 5.6 percent in the three years following the recession that ended in 1982.