Text via CNS:
“Now, without relitigating the past, I’m absolutely convinced, and the vast majority of economists are convinced, that the steps we took in the Recovery Act saved millions of people their jobs or created a whole bunch of jobs.
“And part of the evidence of that is as you see what happens with the Recovery Act phasing out. When I came into office and budgets were hemorrhaging at the state level, part of the Recovery Act was giving states help so they wouldn’t have to lay off teachers, police officers, firefighters. As we’ve seen that federal support for states diminish, you’ve seen the biggest job losses in the public sector--teachers, police officers, firefighters losing their jobs.”
Commentary:
I have said, multiple times, the $787 billion stimulus Obama and Democrats passed in February 2009 was nothing more than a band-aid slapped on a gushing wound.
Using any failing business as an example, whether it is a lack of sales, bad management, whatever the reason the business is losing money, if you pump more money into it, that business can keep it's doors open until the money runs out.
If the underlying causes of failure was not addressed and fixed, the business would again fail when the extra money runs out.
The stimulus did exactly that, it pumped good taxpayer money after bad into the economy. It did not address or fix the underlying problems and as the money ran out, or as Obama puts it, "phased" out... surprise, surprise, the problems are still there.
The stimulus only gave the illusion that there was some kind of recovery going on.
Obama likes to talk about how many jobs were created or saved by his stimulus plan but we never see him acknowledge or see the media ask about the one million private sector jobs that were destroyed/forestalled as a direct result of the stimulus package, leaving his stimulus package with a net loss of 500,000 jobs.
Unemployment was 8.1 in February of 2009, it is now 9.2 in June of 2011.
No worries though, Democrats want...wait for it....... another stimulus plan.
The evidence is in alright and Obama is right, the stimulus worked if the purpose of that stimulus was to create an illusion.
