Barack Obama is proposing another stimulus package but calling it a "jobs package" after dozens of jobs packages have already passed the House of Representatives and have been killed in the Democratically controlled Senate, packages that held within them ways to pay for the money spent in their proposals.
Not Obama's.
Topping it off, this new proposal of Obama's is a $447 billion package.
“Each of the ideas on this list will help create jobs and build a stronger economy right now,” Mr. Obama said in his weekly address. “Let’s push Congress to do the right thing. Let’s keep moving this country forward together.”
The president’s list includes an expanded program to help homeowners refinance their mortgages, a proposal to give small businesses tax breaks for hiring more workers, a program that would help veterans find jobs, and an extension of tax credits for clean-energy companies.
He lobbied for the refinancing plan Friday in a speech in Reno, Nev. – a state that ranks second in the nation in mortgage foreclosures.
All told, the proposals on the president’s list could cost up to $34.7 billion: They are part of a more comprehensive $447 billion jobs package that Congress mostly has resisted.
Mr. Obama didn’t discuss in his address the cost of his proposals or how to pay for them. The refinancing plan, for example, would likely include a fee charged to homeowners.
In November 2011, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) admitted that Obama's first stimulus plan cost more than was originally projected, did less and harmed the economy in the long run.
(Discussed here at Wake up America here, with a link to the report)
Hence Democrats being told to not use the term "stimulus" anymore.
Obama can call it anything he wants, but as the expression goes, if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck and looks like a duck, it is a duck.
OBAMA'S 2009 STIMULUS BROKEN PROMISES
Obama's "Stimulus 1" failed to create the jobs his own chief economic advisers said they would, when they assured the public that with the stimulus unemployment would not go over 8 percent and it has been over 8 percent since.
In 2008 Obama promised that shovel-ready infrastructure projects would lead recovery and create jobs immediately. After he took office and signed the stimulus into law, Obama said "I can say that 14 days after I signed our Recovery Act into law, we are seeing shovels hit the ground."
In 2011, at Obama's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness, he admitted that "Shovel-ready was not as ... uh .. shovel-ready as we expected."
While campaigning in 2008, Obama promised "I'll invest $150 billion over the next decade in affordable, renewable sources of energy -- wind power, and solar power, and the next generation of biofuels -- an investment that will lead to new industries and 5 million new jobs that pay well and can't be outsourced."
In 2011, Aaron Glantz at the New York Times reported "Number Of Green Jobs Fails To Live Up To Promise," where the article explained that clean-technology jobs accounted for just 2 percent of employment nationwide." In that same article, Glantz wrote "Obama once pledged to create five million green jobs over 10 years. Gov. Jerry Brown promised 500,000 clean-technology jobs statewide by the end of the decade. But the results so far suggest such numbers are a pipe dream."
February 17, 2009, at the signing of The American Recovery And Reinvestment Act aka "Obama's Stimulus Package", Barack Obama said "And it's a plan that rewards responsibility, lifting 2 million Americans from poverty by ensuring that anyone who works hard does not have to raise a child below the poverty line. So as a whole, this plan will help poor and working Americans pull themselves into the middle class in a way we haven't seen in nearly 50 years."
In 9/13/11 press release, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, since Obama took office 6.3 million Americans have fallen into poverty.
In January 2012, Reuters reported the number of Americans living in poverty grew to 46.2 million in 2010 and those numbers were expected to increase in 2011 due to the slow pace of economic recovery, the high rate of unemployment, and the long duration of spells of unemployment."
In March 2009, Obama promised "And we will put 1 million plug-in hybrid vehicles on America's roads by 2015. That's where we're going to focus on. Now, because these cars of tomorrow require batteries of tomorrow, I'm announcing that the Department of Energy is launching a $2 billion competitive grant program under the Recovery Act that will spark the manufacturing of the batteries and parts that run these cars; that will allow for the upgrading of factories that will produce them, and in the process, create thousands of jobs in facilities like this one -- all across America."
October 2011, Washington Post reports on Fisker Automotive "An electric car company backed by more than a half-billion dollars in Department of Energy loan guarantees has missed early manufacturing goals and has gradually pushed back plans for U.S. production and the creation of thousands of jobs."
Making things even worse, ABC News reported "With the approval of the Obama administration, an electric car company that received a $529 million federal government loan guarantee is assembling its first line of cars in Finland, saying it could not find a facility in the United States capable of doing the work."
January 2012, the Washington Post reports evidence is mounting that Obama was overly optimistic to pledge that there would be 1 million EVs on the road by 2015, and they pose too many issues of price and practicality to attract a large segment of the car-buying public. More prosaic fuel-economy innovations such as conventional hybrids, clean-diesel cars and advanced gasoline engines all show much more promise than electrics." That same article reports "Sales of electric vehicles were disappointing in 2011, with the Volt coming in below the 10,000 units forecast. In addition to its high price, the Volt brand is suffering from news that some of its batteries burst into flames after government road tests."
OBAMA'S 2012 REELECTION CAMPAIGN PROMISES
Now Barack Obama is campaigning for reelection and again making promises about another $447 billion Stimulus package, praying Americans will forget all his broken promises from his 2008 campaign and his push for the Stimulus 1.
Of course, for reasons explained above, Obama is not calling it a "stimulus package", he is calling it a "jobs package." (nudge nudge, wink wink)