Vice President Joe Biden attends the Olympics on Sunday.
AP Photo/Chris O'Meara
Washington D.C. – Vice President Joe Biden has released his annual report to President Barack Obama on the progress of the stimulus package. The report covers to date expenditures from the act, as well as a report of several indicators of the status of the economy over the course of the bills life. Thus far, only about half of the funds have been distributed.
The stimulus package, formally known as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, was passed in February of 2009. Although only supported and voted upon by Democrats, Republicans, before, during, and after passage, have claimed credit for the bill with their constituents when it suited them politically, In addition, they have acknowledged through their continued desire for funds for their districts and states that the act has been a successful piece of legislation. Despite this, the GOP also has continually tried to discredit the Democratic leadership of the bill by crying “socialism” and also by stating that the bill has not worked when it has suited them politically.
On Wednesday, President Obama stated that though not politically safe, the stimulus package was necessary in order to keep the nation to falling into an even more devastating recession or possibly a deep depression.
Biden appeared Wednesday morning on CBS’ The Early Show and stated that the measure has saved or created approximately 2 million jobs. This figure was calculated by the CBO.
In an interview on Good Morning America on ABC, the head of the White House Council of Economic Advisers Christina Romer said that state relief has been successful. “State fiscal relief really has kept hundreds of thousands of teachers and firefighters and first responders on the job.” Furthermore, she remarked, “We have seen productivity surge, and that, at one level, is a good sign out the economy. But absolutely, we've got to translate GDP growth into employment growth. Right now, the employment numbers look basically stable. We think we're going to see positive job growth by spring.”
Click here key excerpts from the report as listed on the White House press release from Tuesday, February 16, 2010.
For more on the economy, please click here.
Comments
After all these months, Ray finally makes a valid point. There is a crappy answer however. Pork AKA "The Obama Stimulous package" is a complete failure but when you are handing out free goodies if you do not take whats offered, someone else will get your share. The best idea to understand this behavior is an idea called "tragedy of the commons". If something is free to all, that something will be abused by over use since it is a race to get what you can while you can from that resource. This is what is happening with the stimulous pork. I cannot blame Republicans for taking their share since the Democrats would gladdly use it for themselves. Also the pork is really just getting your own money back from the government.
The end result is that you are forced into taking the money but you would rather that the money had never been made available to anyone for the sake of America. Its an ugly situation created by Democrats.
Any news on ACORN or the Climate Gates Ray?
I was in Katie's in Wilmington yesterday for lunch and I saw that they created or saved 200,493 french fries and hot dogs.
The stimulus worked! And we created 245 brand spanking new zip codes in the process. Ain't we great? We are doing that 3 letter word J O B S what we promised, to keep it under 8% unemployment.
Even Dunkin Donuts has hired people without Indian accents.
I am drawing a paycheck because of the Recovery Act. In fact, my Republican congresscritter (who voted against the bill) wrote to the Department of Agriculture asking for and getting funds to allow me keep my job. Why don't you ask my family what they think of the stimulus.
If you don't work in energy or road construction,..you got screwed in Obama's stimulus.
If you work in another area or not linked to one of these job areas,, yet received a benefit of the Democrat stimulus on any level at all,..please explain how.
That job you have probably cost the tax payers 400,000 dollars for one years worth of work.
Plenty of people are out of work but you getting an overpaid handout seems to have bought you off. The 8 people that will not be getting a job because of your job will not thank you or Obama. So ask how the unemployed families how they feel about the government waste.
Employed is a perfect example of the visible beneficiary and the invisible victim syndrome. Politicians love to take credit for the up side but then distance themselves from the consequences of their actions.
I don't have anything against you Employed, you are just playing the game that sits before you. I do have a problem with the stupid Democrats that create crappy situations like the stimulus package.
Frank: Can you explain how these 8 people got jobs because Employed stayed unemployed? How did you come up with 400k? Are you dividing the jobs created with the total cost of the ARRA?
You do know when your spend say 30m for a bridge, when you finish, the bridge is there? You are beyond understanding. Just how would you create jobs? Lower taxes, fire teachers, do away with Medicare and Social Security and hope for the best?
Home weatherization for the poor sure worked well Joe!
"The Energy folks did tell ABC they've so far spent $522 million Recovery Act dollars on the program. Which works out to, let's see, about $57,362 worth of very expensive weatherstripping for each home fixed up so far.
Seems about right for a federal program."
latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2010/02/obama-stimulus-weatherization.html
Mjy says: "You do know when you spend say 30m for a bridge, when you finish, the bridge is there? You are beyond understanding."
While this may be true, when that bridge is completed, those jobs are gone! Then these people are right back to the unemployment lines. Is that "beyond" YOUR understanding?
Joe (foot in mouth) Biden said yesterday "Washington right now is broken."
Lets see. Congress has been in ruled by his own democrap party for 3 years now. So WHO THE HELL BROKE IT?
Very little of the money was for actual construction so there will not be many bridges left when this is all said and done. You make a decent point about how the number is generated but most of the money from this stimulus was not spent on any type of raw materials. I assume much of the money got wasted on pencil pushers or to increase pay for government workers. Very few new jobs were actually created and a nice hunk of these new jobs were very short term.
The point is MJY is that the money would have been beeter spent by the private sector. Government is incredibly wasteful and can only take money from other. In order for government to create a so called job, it must take money from the private economy which would have produced more jobs. This hold true even when a RRepublican is in office. The only catch is that most republicans would not be foolish enough to try and create jobs using government force.
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