Congressman Perriello is spreading untruths concerning a CBO report on stimulus spending. Perriello tweeted: “encouraged by CBO report that says stimulus has created(emphasis mine) btw 600k and 1.6M jobs, raised GDP by 1.2-3.2%” When in actuality the report stated: “The Congressional Budget Office late Monday said it estimates that the federal stimulus package sustained between 600,000 and 1.6 million jobs in the third quarter…” I wonder how many of those jobs were created in Virginia’s 12th District?
Tom there is a big difference between created and sustained. Not to mention the fact that it is damn near impossible to determine how many jobs were “saved”. If Bush would have tried claiming having saved “x” amount of jobs the media would have been all over him. But this administration can get away with just about anything.
Congressman let’s try to stick to the facts.
2 Comments
BRG,
While their is a semantic difference in the terms “created” and “sustained,” the relevant point here is that, according to the CBO, 600,000 and 1.6 million people held jobs during the third quarter of 2009 WHO OTHERWISE WOULD HAVE BEEN OUT OF WORK were in not for the stimulus. Whether they were working at a newly “created” job or an “old” one that otherwise they would have lost may be a distinction important to you, I suspect that the person still in his/her “sustained” job because of the stimulus package is even more satisfied than the person who lost their job and had to find a newly “created” one. While I agree that the economic situation remains grim and that unemployment has risen higher that we were told it would way back at the beginning of the year, I think it is pretty hard to argue that without the stimulus there would be fewer people out of work. Again, the significance of the CBO estimate – and it is just an ESTIMATE and I’m not here to argue its validity – is that things could have been a whole lot worse. One of the many problems with the a prior political convinction that the other side is incapable of doing ANYTHING right is that it makes you incapable to is that it forces people to take ridiculous and ultimately indefensible positions. As for Bush, he did claim that his upper echalon tax breaks and a war in Irag would be great for American. If you are truly concerned about our county’s outrageous debt, please make an effort to acknowledge its origins rather than trying so hard to blame and criticize at every step those who are working to solve the problem. If you think you have real, workable solutions to the dire problems facing this country then by all means let’s here them. In the meantime, it is pure fantasy to imagine that if only Virgil Goode had remained in office everything today would be different.
“In the meantime, it is pure fantasy to imagine that if only Virgil Goode had remained in office everything today would be different.”
Simply untrue.
We’d at least be able to protest at his offices without be charged with trespassing and threatened with arrest, the votes in Conress might have been the same but at least Goode would be voting for will of the majority of constituents instead of against them on every vote.
We wouldn’t be told lies on a daily basis. We wouldn’t have the irony of a Congressman demanding the truth from the Postal Service regarding the closing of a postal center only to have our demands for the truth brushed aside as if they didn’t matter.
Perhaps those ‘created jobs’ were in those FANTASY districts that don’t exist?
“our county’s outrageous debt, please make an effort to acknowledge its origins”
It’s Congress. They hold the purse strings. Its in the Constitution. Which majority has held the purse strings the last 3 years? Democrats, who three years ago said they were going to be responsible with our money. Then signed off by the Commander-in-Chief. Republicans aren’t any less guilty over the last 8 years either…they’ve totally lost their way…hence the groundswell against them.
George Bush didn’t help when he signed TARP into law last fall. Remember that Obama, Reid and Pelosi pushed insanely hard for that garbage…and now blame Bush for it all.
Just how are we going to pay for all of this stupidity and debt?
Government is not the answer.