It’s amazing that regular Americans understand our economy better than most of the elite economists advising this White House as it pushed through the $862 Billion deficit-deepening Stimulus package less than one month after taking office. Let’s examine just how wrong they were:
Promise 1 – President Obama promised unemployment would not rise above 8 Percent if the package was passed. The reality – the unemployment rate in America is 9.7 percent and in Indiana it is 10.0 percent.
Promise 2 – The President also promised his Stimulus Bill would create 3.5 million jobs by the end of 2010. Well, since the bill passed, America has lost 2.8 million jobs – so we need to create 1 million jobs per month for the rest of the year for that promise to be fulfilled.
Promise 3 — Moreover, the President promised the Stimulus Bill “will create good jobs that pay well and can’t be shipped overseas.” (The White House, “Remarks By The President And The Vice President On The American Recovery And Reinvestment Act,” 4/13/09). But the disturbing reality is that some stimulus dollars have gone to foreign corporations that are creating jobs far away from America.
“Nearly half of the $2.4 billion in federal grant money awarded Wednesday to stimulate the U.S. economy and boost the production of hybrid and electric vehicles went to six companies with ties to places as far away as Russia, China, South Korea and France. … But because so few American companies have the necessary technology, much of the money will initially go toward manufacturing electric vehicle batteries overseas.” (Jerry Seper, “Obama Sends Stimulus Aid To Foreign Firms,” The Washington Times, 8/6/09)
Promise 4 — We should not be surprised, because the Government Accounting Office (federal watchdog agency) reports that transparency and oversight are lacking when keeping track of the Stimulus bill’s effectiveness, despite the President’s promise he would bring rigorous oversight to this unprecedented spending spree.
“The Government Accountability Office said in a report that increased transparency and better oversight is needed to track stimulus money being sent to state and local governments. The report noted that keeping track of stimulus money and effectiveness wasn’t necessarily easy under the current methods. ‘Questions remained about how to count jobs and measure performance under Recovery Act-funded programs,’ the report said.” (Rich Edson and Joanna Ossinger, “GAO: More Transparency Needed To Track Stimulus Money,” Fox Business, 7/7/09).
Hoosiers and regular Americans understood this during the last national campaign, but in the 20 months since that election, more and more Americans have come to understand that the lack of knowledge about the economy and a lack of managerial expertise, combined with a liberal left Congress is deepending rather than solving our problems. And speaking of Congress, which passes thousands upon thousands of pages of new laws we must live under (health care, financial regulatory “reform,” cap-and-trade, among others) while ignoring one of the most basic laws it must follow (passing a budget each year) is working with this Administration in a way that just keeps driving the economy into a ditch.
As the federal representative for the Southwestern and Wabash Valley areas of Indiana, I will cut government spending, work to lower taxes, and put our economy on a sound footing so that this generation is paying its bills and meetings its responsibilities rather than saddling our children and grandchildren with the bill for our leadership failures.
