Spin Doesn’t Match Reality

The American public knows instinctively that the federal government’s $800 billion stimulus program has failed to get our economy moving again. New economic data released today confirms that suspicion, as economic growth was revised down to just a 1.6 percent annual rate in the second quarter.

This stands in stark contrast to the promises that were made by President Obama and Nancy Pelosi when the stimulus package was under debate. Instead of “saving or creating” millions of jobs, the stimulus plan has instead resulted in weak economic growth and an unemployment rate stuck around 10 percent that could go even higher.

Despite these very public failures of the stimulus plan, the Obama White House continues to spin the facts in the face of reality. Earlier this week, Vice President Joe Biden said that the administration "hit the accelerator" toward spending $5 billion under the economic stimulus law to weatherize people's homes. Yet according to the Associated Press, “the stimulus weatherization program has experienced spending delays, inefficiencies and mismanagement. In Biden's home state of Delaware, the entire program has been suspended since May, and last month federal auditors identified possible fraud.”

White House spin has told us that the stimulus plan has saved or created 3.6 million jobs. Yet unemployment continues to linger and is predicted to go even higher. The White House promised that borrowing hundreds of billions to finance stimulus spending instead of providing tax relief to small business would boost economic growth. Yet today we see that economic growth is trending the wrong way and that a double dip recession could be on the horizon.

The American people are smarter than the Democrats in Congress and the White House give them credit for. They know that Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama have failed to live up to their promises. They know that the way to get the economy moving again is tax relief, not more deficit spending. And they know that the only way to get our economy back on track is to elect a Republican majority to Congress that will enact a stimulus plan that works no matter what the spin.