NYC Letter: Pants On Fire VIII

Day 181 of CHOPE

Then:

(1) [American workers] are looking to Washington for action – bold and swift. ... (2) Most of the money we're investing as part of this plan will get out the door immediately and (3) go directly to job-creation, generating or saving three to four million new jobs. (4) And the vast majority of these jobs will be created in the private sector – because, as these CEOs well know, business, not government, is the engine of growth in this country.

Mr. Obama,
emphasizing the swiftness of the stimulus spend
and its primary goal of job creation
WASHINGTON January 28, 2009 (White House)

Now:

In a little over one hundred days, this Recovery Act has worked as intended. ... (1) But, as I made clear at the time it was passed, the Recovery Act was not designed to work in four months – it was designed to work over two years. (2) We also knew that it would take some time for the money to get out the door, because we are committed to spending it in a way that is effective and transparent. ... (3) It has already extended unemployment insurance and health insurance to those who have lost their jobs in this recession. It has delivered $43 billion in tax relief to American working families and businesses. (4) Without the help the Recovery Act has provided to struggling states, its estimated that state deficits would be nearly twice as large as they are now, resulting in tens of thousands of additional layoffs.

Mr. Obama,
redefining his stimulus to fit its fizzle
WEEKLY ADDRESS: PRESIDENT OBAMA
PRAISES RECOVERY ACT PROGRESS
WASHINGTON July 11, 2009 (White House)

The stimulus has NOT worked as advertised.

1. The clear expectation was that the stimulus would have an immediate positive effect on the economy. In January Mr. Obama's designated chair for the Council of Economic Advisors advertised that the stimulus would hold unemployment to 8%. Unemployment for June was 9.5%, for May 9.4%, for April 8.9%, for March 8.5%, for February 8.1%.

FIGURE 1 (A)
[Graphic Source: Job Impact Of The American Recovery
And Reinvestment Plan, January 9, 2009]

2. The government has spent about 7% or $55B five months into a "bold and swift" two-year program, where the conservative expectation would be 15%-20%. The promise was that "most of the money" would "get out the door immediately", not "take some time".
3. Transfer payments do not "go directly to job-creation", because transfer payments do not create jobs. The conservative expectation five months into a "bold and swift" two-year program to create or "save"* 3 to 4 million jobs would be 625,000-833,000 jobs. Team Barry claims 150,000 undocumented jobs created or "saved"* against a loss of 3,362,000 jobs since the stimulus was signed into law.
4. Shoring up state budgets -- where most of the stimulus money has gone -- does not "save"* much less create any jobs in the private sector.

Mr. Obama continues his strategy of effectively stymieing his critics by overwhelming them with falsehoods. These are not interpretive retellings or simple errors of fact or little fibs. Mr. Obama is going for broke.

For example, here is Mr. Obama during his recent Weekly Address:

First, the same folks who controlled the White House and Congress for the past eight years as we ran up record deficits will argue – believe it or not – that health reform will lead to record deficits. That’s simply not true.

The "folks" who controlled the Congress since January 2007 were the Democrats. Here is the change Democrats delivered less than two years after becoming the majority party in both houses.

Also these are not the same "folks" who argue – "believe it or not" – that health reform will lead to record deficits. It is the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, the official scorer of the cost of legislation:

Under questioning by members of the Senate Budget Committee, Douglas Elmendorf, director of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, said bills crafted by House leaders and the Senate health committee do not propose "the sort of fundamental changes" necessary to rein in the skyrocketing cost of government health programs, particularly Medicare.

On the contrary, Elmendorf said, the measures would pile on an expensive new program to cover the uninsured.

CHOPE.

Promises. Results. Lies.

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* There is no metric for "saved" jobs (and this).