This time last year, the Community Organizer in Chief was running around the country manufacturing a sense of urgency to pass a $787 billion bill that he claimed was needed to fix the American economy…
It worked, similar to the way a veternarian “fixes” a dog.
He promised that if the bill passed, 3.5 million jobs would be “saved or created” by the end of 2010.
Now, what makes this recovery plan so important is not just that it will create or save 3.5 million jobs over the next two years, including 60,000-plus here in Colorado. It’s that we’re putting Americans to work doing the work that America needs done –- (applause) — in critical areas that have been neglected for too long; work that will bring real and lasting change for generations to come.
And one year later… 4.02 million jobs have been LOST… which means his urgent, must-pass-it-now-or-we-all-die stimulus plan must create 7.52 million jobs in the next 10 months to keep his promise.
So naturally the Obama administration is projecting historical growth based on the success of the legislation he said was urgently needed, right? Wrong.
President Barack Obama’s top economic advisers offered a cautious forecast on Thursday that U.S. job gains for 2010 will average 95,000 a month, with analysts expecting hiring to expand by spring.
That would mean he falls just 6.57 million jobs short of the promised benefits of passing the Generational Theft Act of 2009.
Part of Obama’s sales pitch in pleading for quick passage of the stimulus bill was that if passed, it would keep unemployment below 8%… and if it didn’t pass, unemployment would jump.
In the absence of stimulus, the economy could lose another 3 to 4 million more. Thus, we are working to counter a potential total job loss of at least 5 million. Even with the large prototypical package, the unemployment rate in 2010Q4 is predicted to be approximately 7.0%, which is well below the approximately 8.8% that would result in the absence of a plan.
At the time of his sales pitch, unemployment was at 7.7%… after passage of the bill that was supposed to halt unemployment, it has since topped out at over 10%… and that’s not even considering the folks who’ve given up looking for a job since the bill was passed (putting the real unemployment figure somewhere north of 16%)
Obama said the effects of the bill would be widespread… and he was right. Since its passage, all 50 states have experienced an increase in jobless rates.
Regional and state unemployment rates were generally higher in December. Forty-three states and the District of Columbia recorded over-the-month unemployment rate increases, four states registered rate decreases, and three states had no rate change, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Over the year, jobless rates increased in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.
Not bad return on a $787 billion investment, huh? Oh, actually, the number’s been revised and the cost of this disater is actually now $862 billion. But what’s a hundred billion or so when the money is being put to such good use.
Perhaps the delta between what was promised and what was delivered is just a simple statistical error. Maybe the Bureau of Labor Statistics researchers just haven’t visited 440 nonexistent Congressional Districts that received $6.4 billion in funds .
In its latest computer glitch, the Obama administration’s much-ballyhooed accounting system for the $1.2 trillion stimulus law detailed government spending in 39 congressional districts in Texas — a state that, in reality, has 32 congressional districts. More than $14 million in mystery money is attributed to seven phantom congressional districts, including the mysterious and fictional District 00.
Nationally, the recovery.gov site has mistakenly attributed $6.4 billion in stimulus spending to 440 nonexistent districts in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and even four American territories, according to an analysis by the nonpartisan government oversight group watchdog.org.
Whew, just a data entry error on the Stimulus website… a website that cost taxpayers $18 million, by the way.
So one year after Obama breathlessly warned us that if the Stimulus Bill didn’t get passed, the economy would be in worse shape, we have an economy saddled by enormous debt, negative job growth and a declining morale all tracked on an overprice and inaccurate government-run website. What’d you expect from a guy who’s receiving on-the-job-training in the White House?