White House: 1 million jobs created or saved
RICHMOND TIMES-DISPATCH
Richmond native Melody Barnes is director of the White House Domestic Policy Council.
AUDIO: Melody Barnes
The federal stimulus plan to kick-start the economy into a recovery so far has generated or saved more than 1 million jobs, the White House declared yesterday.
The Obama administration said it is on track to create or save 3.5 million jobs by the end of next year.
"The basic number is that we've spent about a third of the money in a third of the time," domestic policy adviser Melody C. Barnes told the Richmond Times-Dispatch.
With unemployment approaching 10 percent, and many economists forecasting joblessness to rise above that mark next year, Republicans are skeptical about the White House claims.
"Americans, particularly those with friends and family out of work, know that the administration's claims of stimulus success and jobs saved or created are not serious," said Rep. Eric I. Cantor, R-7th, the Republican Party whip.
Barnes, a Richmond native who is President Barack Obama's top domestic policy adviser, said the federal stimulus effort has helped slow the rate of layoffs from the 700,000-a-month level reached when Obama took office to around 200,000 a month now.
Basically, the idea is to pump about $787 billion of federal money over two years to state governors, local officials and other entities to do everything from helping pay teachers salaries to fixing crumbling roads.
Barnes said Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. is leading an effort to get those officials to use that money as quickly as possible.
"We always want to move faster," Barnes said.
"We are working very hard with our agencies and with governors and with local officials to make sure the dollars get out."
In Virginia, where state agencies have been awarded about $2.2 billion in stimulus program contracts and grants, Gov. Timothy M. Kaine reported yesterday that funds actually spent total about $150 million, or a little less than 7 percent. Roughly $3.3 billion of additional stimulus money went to local governments and organizations outside state government, Kaine's office reported.
Kaine said state agencies report saving or creating more than 5,900 jobs with stimulus funds.
The Obama administration said Virginia recipients report creating or saving 8,617 jobs. That ranks Virginia 23rd among the states and territories, just behind Oklahoma.
Nationwide, about $160 billion of stimulus funds have created or saved 640,329 jobs, the White House said yesterday, basing the figure on reports from recipients of the funds.
Biden said when the impact of about $288 billion of tax cuts is added in, the total of jobs created or saved is more than 1 million.
That translates to about $250,000 for each job linked to the stimulus funds, and about $800,000 for each job generated or saved by a tax cut.
Contact David Ress at (804) 649-6051 or
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Sensible sentiments mricotta.
The AP released a story a few days ago about how the first round of numbers the administration released was overstated due to errors. According to the article, “The AP review found some counts were more than 10 times as high as the actual number of jobs; some jobs credited to the stimulus program were counted two and sometimes more than four times; and other jobs were credited to stimulus spending when none was produced.
For example:
_ A company working with the Federal Communications Commission reported that stimulus money paid for 4,231 jobs, when about 1,000 were produced.
_ A Georgia community college reported creating 280 jobs with recovery money, but none was created from stimulus spending.
_ A Florida child care center said its stimulus money saved 129 jobs but used the money on raises for existing employees.“
Now the administration jumped on the 1 million number and it will be interesting to see how inaccurate that number is. This administration is a propaganda machine and is more interested in making itself look good than actually doing good for the people in this great country. Obama did not create the economic mess himself, but blaming the past administration is old. Obama can not blame Bush for everything…notice Obama fails to ever address that the Clinton administration is responsible for repealing the laws regarding responsible lending that helped to fuel the mortgage bubble bust but is quick to blame W…typical. The stimulus was a very expensive and bad joke. Too bad we will never get the actual numbers until Obama is retired from the White House gig and will not be held accountable for the hellacious debt our future generation is saddled with.
mricotta,,, very well said!
“Posted by drhoagie on October 31, 2009 at 1:28 pm
“Like old man McCain and his smart side kick Palin would have done better?“
Hypothetically had a President McCain and VP Palin did nothing, it would have been better.
Nothing!“
DrHoagie - I guess that means they did do better than Mr. Teleprompter (err, Obama). LOL
I believe when the American people stop thinking of themselves as Democratos or Republicans, and start thinking of themselves as Americans, then that “us vs. them” mentality-maybe, just maybe- might fade away. Remember WWII? As a country, even with the differences we had with each other, we ALL joined together to fight a common enemy. Guess what folks. That enemy is back, butr in another form! It is called fiscal irresponsibility, waste, pork, fraud, mismanagement, cronyisum and lies. It doesn’t matter what side of the political fence you are on…when you spend more money than you take in-you are BROKE!!! If we all overwrote our checkbooks for $100.00 the bank would hit us with fees, and if you did it knowingly (ie. “uttering” or writing a bad check) there might even be criminal prosecution. So why do people think it’s okay to go into a trillion + deficit? Because we’ve been told it will dig us out of a hole! NO NO NO!! The only hole around will be the big black one sucking this economy to the event horizon then it will be to late. I don’t care if you are liberal or conservative. Do you like your job? Like feeding your family? Like being able to buy gas to get to work? Like a little R&R, little league, kid’s having sports, holidays etc? Guess what-it ain’t gonna happen if this country keeps on the track that it has been. To let you know-the only finger that we should be pointing is at our elected officials-local, state and Federal and telling them to cut the crap oir GET OUT! STOP wasting our money-because it is OUR money! STOP lying to us and telling us “things are getting better”, the only people things got better for were the high flying financial whizkids who screwed the pooch on a lot of this to begin with. AND they are STILL being paid ridiculous sums of money AND they are beginning to engage in the same risky investment behavior that got us to the brink of financial collapse to begin with. And what is worse, the government has allowed the risk pool to concentrate by allowing all these bank mergers. Take heed folks. Else as Bugs Bunny would say “You’re goona be S-O-R-R-Y”
Granted Obama can’t be blamed for ALL the problems.Greta makes a good point to say that the origins go back several administrations, not just to Bush and Clinton.
What Obama CAN be blamed for is the way he’s addressing these problems.
Don’t whine that he ‘inherited’ a mess. He ran for the job and said he was up to the challenge.
Now he can’t even figure out his own strategy in Afghanistan, a war he claimed was necessary.
Sure he can’t fix everything in 10 months BUT Obamas remedy(government spending) is never gonna cure what ails us.
The sad part is Obama knows that.
Here is a fact brought to you by Track The Money at http://www.recovery.org :
Jobs created or saved in zip code 23219
“23219 5,413.8 $932,770,120
Aren’t we all excited that Richmond is so prosperous and recession free now?
Follow the link for more propaganda and puffery.
Obama knew that we were going to have a problem with the “Swine Flu” for almost a year now, and he has yet to get the shots for everyone. WOW! he talked about how he is going to take care of us all with his Obama Care and yet we find out that he cannot even get the shots for us all…. Is this the kind of Change he wants us to believe in.
Even the Liberal Democrats are deserting him, as they deep down do not like him. The only reason they are supporting him is… they are hoping they can get another LIBERAL in office, and we KNOW that this WILL not happen ever again….
Where are the FLU Shots when the flu season is here Liberal Democrats? Please explain to us on this board why Obama is not giving us the CHANGE that he promise us all… I too feel you pain, as we all know how you dislike OBama….
Lets not forget all the auto jobs Obama “saved”. He spent billions in $$$ to them to keep them alive and then paid the consumers billions of $$$ more to buy their product. Lets face it, many of the auto industry jobs are gone as soon as the stimulus is over. Those jobs are not saved.
What America needs is a Truth Czar.
And a Math Czar.
loggerhead’s numbers are very close to what I heard on CNBC and the WSJ.
Very straightforward and simple.
Of course then you get reactions in this thread like -
“Unfortunately for Republicans most of the jobs saved were teachers"etc. Then some further informative remarks about another poster not knowing any teachers or firefighters or policemen.
Actually the quotes about the teachers is true. Government workers galore. And they most likely will be out of work once the payoff to the Teachers Union runs out of money.
drhoagie is also correct. Doing nothing would have been more painful but it would have been more effective and cheaper in the long term.
The recession was this administration’s dream “crisis.“ The perfect excuse to “Fundamentally change America.“
“That translates to about $250,000 for each job linked to stimulus funds, and about $800,000 for each job generated or saved by a tax cut.“
Obamamath. All his.
Some want to go back (the ones whose attention span can only go back 8 years) and blame Bush, some to Clinton some to Reagan some to Carter even all the way to Roosevelt. They all contributed to the current mess.
But now it is Barack Obama’s watch. He promised “change” and a new America. Well this is what it looks like. Division, disappointment, fear and anxiety.
A population expected to shut up and close their eyes to blatant lies and manipulation.
Anyone who wants to do that is welcome to. But when Obama’s “chickens come home to roost” you had better be prepared to make room for them in your own backyard.
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