President Barack Obama said his $787 billion stimulus bill “has worked as intended” as he pushed back against Republican criticism that his recovery program has failed to rescue the economy.
“It has already extended unemployment insurance and health insurance to those who have lost their jobs in this recession,” Obama, who is traveling today in Ghana, said in his weekly Saturday radio and Web address. “It has delivered $43 billion in tax relief to American working families and business.”
Obama spoke after stocks fell for a fourth week on concern that an economic recovery will be delayed. A government report last week showed that employers cut 467,000 jobs in June and the unemployment rate rose to 9.5 percent, the highest since 1983.
The weakening labor market is taking a toll on Obama’s popularity. A survey by Hamden, Connecticut-based Quinnipiac University released July 7 showed 49 percent of Ohio voters approved of Obama’s job performance, down from 62 percent in a May 6 poll. The disapproval figure for Obama was 44 percent, up from 31 percent in May.
Obama, in his speech, said the stimulus program is helping state governments save jobs. Were it not for the program, the president said, “state deficits would be nearly twice as large as they are now, resulting in tens of thousands of additional layoffs — layoffs that would affect police officers, teachers, and firefighters.”
Republican Response
In the weekly Republican response, House Minority Whip Eric Cantor of Virginia said the stimulus bill was “full of pork- barrel spending, government waste and massive borrowing cleverly called ‘stimulus.’”
“The plain truth is that President Obama’s economic decisions have not produced jobs, have not produced prosperity, and have not worked,” Cantor said.
He said the Republicans want reductions in tax rates that he said would help middle-class families.
In asking for public patience, Obama said the recovery act “wasn’t designed to restore the economy to full health on its own, but to provide the boost necessary to stop the free fall.”
Enacted in February, the bill “was designed to spur demand and get people spending again and cushion those who had borne the brunt of the crisis,” the president said.
Obama said the measure “was not designed to work in four months — it was designed to work over two years.”
The spending plan will “accelerate greatly” through the summer and autumn, creating “thousands more infrastructure projects” that will lead to additional jobs, he said.
‘Right Direction’
“We’re moving in the right direction,” Obama said. “We must let it work the way it’s supposed to, with the understanding that in any recession, unemployment tends to recover more slowly than other measures of economic activity.”
The Standard & Poor’s 500 dropped 1.9 percent this week to 879.13, the lowest level since May 1. The measure has now retreated 7.1 percent since June 12. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 134.22 points, or 1.6 percent, to 8,146.52.
Sears Holdings Corp., the largest U.S. department-store chain based in Hoffman Estates, Illinois, lost 8.2 percent after an index of consumer confidence dropped more than forecast. Exxon Mobil Corp., the world’s biggest oil company based in Irving, Texas, slid 4.9 percent as crude tumbled on concern the recession will keep sapping demand.
In a Bloomberg interview last month, the president said he expected unemployment rates to exceed 10 percent.
In his radio address, Obama also renewed his commitment to comprehensive health-care legislation that expands insurance coverage while cutting costs. He also vowed to address long-term entitlement overhaul.
Earlier this week, Vice President Joe Biden also defended the Obama administration’s efforts to rebuild America’s economy, while expressing frustration with those who say progress is too slow.
“Remember, we’re only 140 days into this deal,” Biden said in a speech in Cincinnati. “It’s supposed to take 18 months.”
(Source: Bloomberg)
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16 Responses
Patience. By 01/21/13 we’ll have a Republican congress and probably a Republican president. And a bit of enforced frugality might not be such a bad thing, midos-wise.
…and it won’t work until this country stops losing jobs. Let us face facts. If chas v’sholom a person is bleeding internally, no amount of transfusions will stabilize him unless you heal the internal wound and stop the outflow. In OUR COMMUNITY the unemployed are white collar and professional workers such as programmers. All these jobs are being “offshored” to India and elsewhere. The Republicans do “what is good for business”…and this saves money for business. The Democrats do whatever is “good for unions” and white collar and professional jobs are not unionized. The only answer to save jobs in our community is taking action ourselves. We must write our Congressmen to DEMAND that they regulate and STOP this plague of offshoring. This is the ONLY way to end massive unemployment that is only worsening.
King obama’s teleprompter hasn’t said a true word yet.
#2– don’t worry, the “Great Recession” (as opotimists call it) has substantially cut back on offshoring. Indeed, with a bit of deflation, they’ll be offshoring to us (as long as our workers do a better job for less money).
Of course it worked the way our radical president wanted it to work. After all, he said he wanted to “spread the wealth” and “return the wealth to its ‘rightful’ owners.” This is part and parcel of what he was taught while hanging around with the haters Jerry Bullfrog Wright, Bill Ayers and Bernadette Dorn, as well as being a major chusid of Saul Alinsky. The president wanted to “remake” America – which to the rest of us meant KILL IT – and so far he has been successful.
1, akuperma, der Aybishter zul intz aleh helfin the Republican House and Senate will be in place by Jan 2011! I dont know if we could wait another 2 years after that.
If you repeat a lie often enough…
mark levin, you took the words out of my mouth. Let’s pray that Moshiach comes before then.
#6 – Mark, your math is off a bit, since 2004 was a fairly good year for the Republicans, 2010 (when 2004 Senators run again) will be a hard year for the Republicans, but I suspect that both houses will be more or less evenly divided.
Then it must have been intended to continue driving up unemployment…
akuperma, if the election is in Nov 2010, they will take office in early 2011. Based on how it seems (I am out and about) people feel how far left Obama has taken the country and how the House/Senate votes on spending bills without so much as to reading them, add to that that it is a “midterm” election, there will IYH be a major swing in 2010/11.
reminds me of the stalinist propoganda, people were starving yet ‘everything is great, the stores are full, noone is hungry, everyone has waht they need….
BS”D
Only the following five words are correct:
“It has already extended unemployment…….
#11 — Mark, for the Senate to switch, the Republicans would have to defeat an overwhelming majority of the Democrats running for reelection, including some very blue states, which is unlikely.
However 2012 and 2016 will see Senate classes that are based on years the Democrats did very well in, so the Republican opportunities improve tremendously.
The House can change quickly.
Of course, this assume Obama doesn’t find success in any of his major initiatives (though he seems to be much better at speaking being beloved rather than getting anything done – he’ld be a great monarch if we had the British system).
It worked for all those welfare queens in the projects.
What exactly is working? Those who received money are working at trimming the sails on their sail boats?