Let us go back in time and bring this farce full circle.
January 16, 2009, MSNBC:
In his weekly radio address on Jan. 10, 2009, Barack Obama said the No. 1 goal of his economic stimulus plan is to create 3 million new jobs in the next two years. Less than 20 percent of them will be government jobs.
In January 2009 the unemployment rate was 7.6 percent.
February 2009, Barack Obama signs the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009, into law.
Fast forward to February 2010- United States Department of Labor issues a news release stating unemployment is at 9.7 percent, and if you look at individual states (right hand side of linked page) you will see many states are above 10 percent.
Point of note- Increase in Government Jobs 1/8/2010
Despite a report that 85,000 jobs were lost during the month of December, the government appears to be adding to its payroll.
In December alone, 3,300 people landed jobs in the Federal government.
Jumping back in time again to July of 2009 when Democrats were still floating the idea of yet another stimulus bill because the first one, at $787 billion, wasn't large enough.
On the other hand, the Obama Administration may embrace further stimulus if it concludes this would help fight unemployment, which is even more politically toxic. The U.S. economy lost 467,000 jobs in June, and unemployment rose to 9.5%, the worst rate since 1983. The average workweek fell to 30 hours, the shortest since record keeping began in 1964.
Problem for the Democrats pushing for it is that 60 percent of U.S. voters were opposed to a second stimulus plan.
Sixty percent (60%) of U.S. voters now oppose the passage of a second economic stimulus plan this year, a five-point increase in opposition since the issue was first raised in March.
By November 2009, Democrats decided the second stimulus bill should not be called a "stimulus bill" so it had to be renamed.
ABC News "House Dems Prepare Jobs Bill - But Don't Call it ‘Stimulus'"
Politico "Just don't call it a 'stimulus'"
YouTube "Exposed: Obama's STIMULUS Bill Call it a JOBS Bill"
Fast forward to today again- February, 2010, according to a CBS News/New York Times poll, only 6 percent of Americans believe the stimulus package actually worked in any way.
What was it that Obama said during his presidential campaign? Oh yeah.
You can slap lipstick on a pig, but it is still a pig.
Well, you can call this bill anything you want, but it is still a second stimulus bill, using the same promises of "creating jobs" that the last $787 billion bill was supposed to do and it is still doomed to failure for the very same reasons the first one didn't accomplish job growth.
Oh and about that original promise back in January of 2009, from Obama's own lips when he said "Less than 20 percent of them will be government jobs."
The Obama administration says the government will grow to 2.15 million employees this year, topping 2 million for the first time since President Clinton declared that "the era of big government is over" and joined forces with a Republican-led Congress in the 1990s to pare back the federal work force.
Just another Obama lie.
Click all the links above to watch the farce play out, then watch Obama's speech 8th January 2009 on economic stimulus recovery plan Part 2 and decide for yourself whether he has kept his promises or whether he even thought it was possible to keep any of them.
My favorite part is at the 21 second mark, when Obama says "Government, at every level, will have to tighten it's belts."
CBO shows that the President is seeing that $1 trillion and raising it again and again, as far as the eye can see. In only two months, since the last CBO budget review in January, Democrats have passed laws that increase spending by $134 billion in the last six months of this fiscal year alone, and $1.2 trillion over the next 10 years. And that's all before his 2010 budget proposals.
The Hill "No dip in earmark spending despite White House push for transparency"
Transparency requirements pushed for by the Obama administration have not changed the total spending on earmarks for 2010, according to a study by a group critical of the practice.
The amount of money directed by lawmakers in 2010 to specific projects back in their districts adds up to $15.9 billion, according to the analysis by Taxpayers for Common Sense.
I guess tightening the belt means something far different in Obamaspeak than it does to everyday, average Americans who know that you cannot spend money you do not have.
Quick facts, via Heritage and WAPO: Bush vs Obama
- President Bush expanded the federal budget by a historic $700 billion through 2008. President Obama would add another $1 trillion.
- President Bush began a string of expensive financial bailouts. President Obama is accelerating that course.
- President Bush created a Medicare drug entitlement that will cost an estimated $800 billion in its first decade. President Obama has proposed a $634 billion down payment on a new government health care fund.
- President Bush increased federal education spending 58 percent faster than inflation. President Obama would double it.
- President Bush became the first President to spend 3 percent of GDP on federal antipoverty programs. President Obama has already increased this spending by 20 percent.
- President Bush tilted the income tax burden more toward upper-income taxpayers. President Obama would continue that trend.
- President Bush presided over a $2.5 trillion increase in the public debt through 2008. Setting aside 2009 (for which Presidents Bush and Obama share responsibility for an additional $2.6 trillion in public debt), President Obama’s budget would add $4.9 trillion in public debt from the beginning of 2010 through 2016.
We come back full circle to Harry Reid not having the votes to pass the supposed "Jobs Bill" and considering it is nothing more than a second stimulus package that sounds good to the ear with feel good statements like "it will help unemployment" and it will "create jobs", in reality it is more of the same of a failed policy that has already raised our debt and done nothing to actually help the problem.
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