Failed Stimulus 2 Years Later: 9% Unemployment, Quadruple Interest Payments On National Debt

Today in Washington, D.C. - Feb 17, 2011:
The US House has passed an amendment (233-198 ) to cancel F-35's alternate engine - the General Electric/Rolls-Royce F136 engine. The House also has passed (279-143) to extend for three months three expiring surveillance provisions of the anti-terrorism Patriot Act. It previously passed the Senate (86-12).

The Senate resumed consideration of S. 223, the FAA reauthorization bill. Will vote on cloture on the pending Inhofe amendment addressing slots and flight times at Ronald Reagan National Airport. An amendment from Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) concerning the perimeter rule for Reagan airport is pending to the Inhofe amendment. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) wants to finish work on the FAA bill today.

Two years ago, President Obama and the Democrat-run Congress passed their $814 billion stimulus bill, adding the entire tab to America’s debt. At the time, President Obama said, “It's a plan that will save or create up to 4 million jobs over the next two years.” Vice President Joe Biden bragged, “[T]his is about getting this out and spent in 18 months to create 3.5 million jobs and . . . tee this up so the rest of the good work that's being done here literally drop-kicks us out of this recession and we begin to grow again and begin to employ people again.” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) asserted, “This bill creates 3.5 million jobs.” And then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) claimed the “House-passed bill/Obama plan (HR 1) creates 3.7 million jobs.” On top of all that, Obama administration economists Christina Romer and Jared Bernstein predicted that the “unemployment rate with … the recovery plan,” would not exceed eight percent.

So two years later, what have Americans gotten “with the recovery plan”?  The unemployment rate remains 9%, still higher than what Romer and Bernstein predicted. Rather than creating 3.5 million jobs in 18 months, 24 months later millions of Americans have lost their jobs.

Stimulus money went to countless projects Democrats touted as “investments” including $336,000 “to collect and document flowers and plants in Ohio”, $1 Million for a “nose job” for “The Sunset Strip,” $300,000 for “mapping radioactive rabbit feces,” $325,000 to study “the mating decisions” of female cactus bugs, and a $535 million loan to a solar panel maker that proceeded to cancel a factory expansion and then lay off over a hundred workers.

And after all this money was spent, giving none of the promised results and funding absurd pork projects, The Washington Post reports today, “Interest payments on the national debt will quadruple in the next decade and every man, woman and child in the United States will be paying more than $2,500 a year to cover for the nation's past profligacy, according to figures in President Obama's new budget plan. Starting in 2014, net interest payments will surpass the amount spent on education, transportation, energy and all other discretionary programs outside defense. In 2018, they will outstrip Medicare spending.” The Post adds, “The soaring bill for interest payments is one of the biggest obstacles to balancing the federal budget, pushing the White House and Congress to come up with cuts deeper than previously imagined. Unlike with discretionary spending or even entitlement programs, the line item for interest payments cannot be altered except through other budget cuts. . . . ‘This goes to the heart of why we have to address our fiscal problems,’ said Mark Zandi, co-founder and chief economist at Moody's Economy.com. ‘If we don't, we're going to get swamped by our interest payments.’”

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Tags: Washington, D.C., US Senate, US House, FAA Bill, Patriot Act, F-35 Aircraft, failed stimulus, budget, unemployment, interest payments, national debt To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!