One of the most entertaining political shows this fall is the rhetorical gymnastics performed virtually every day by critics of President Obama who can’t bring themselves to acknowledge that the federal stimulus package, the American Recovery and Investment Act, is actually working and that the country’s economy is slowly coming out of the recession.
Republican Senator Richard Burr voted against the Act earlier this year, telling Fox News that “this isn't a stimulus package, this is a spending package." That’s what a stimulus package is of course, an investment by federal government to preserve and create jobs.
Burr must have figured it out, or at least pretended to, when he showed up in Bethlehem in Alexander County recently to present the local fire department with a $2 million check from the federal government for a new station. The money came from the stimulus bill that Burr opposed.
A Sunday News & Observer story quoted the vice-president of a highway construction company saying he has rehired two or three dozen people because of work on stimulus projects, which he called a huge plus for his “ability to retain very good people.”
State Senate Minority Leader Phil Berger said in the same story that the stimulus program has done nothing to create jobs, directly contradicting the businessman who is hiring people because of stimulus projects. Berger needs to revise his talking points.
Maybe House Minority Leader Paul Stam can help him. Stam says that any jobs created now will be lost when the federal government repays money it borrowed to launch the stimulus plan, a somewhat confusing response that at least sheepishly acknowledges that jobs are being created.
And none of the Republicans mentioned the $250 payment to North Carolinians who receive Social Security or the tax cuts for most workers. They must have forgotten the $724 million in direct aid to the families and communities in the state hardest hit by the economic crisis, including increased unemployment and food stamp benefits, money that recipients spend almost immediately, boosting the state’s economy.
They didn’t say anything about the $1.4 billion in federal money that helped state lawmakers balance the budget in the face of a $4.6 billion shortfall or the increased federal match of state Medicaid spending. The federal funding protected thousands of teaching jobs and prevented even deeper cuts in mental health and other human services.
All the stimulus money for highway and infrastructure projects has not been spent yet, so there are more jobs on the way. The White House expects that a total 105,000 jobs will be saved or created in North Carolina by the stimulus package that Burr was against before he was for it.
An economist with Moodys.com says that at the end of 2010, the national unemployment rate will be two percentage points lower than it would have been without the recovery act.
None of this is likely to convince Burr, Stam, Berger, and other bitter partisan critics of Obama to stop their desperate twisting, spinning and distorting. But you have to give them credit. Presenting a check you fought to prevent from being written is bold, if nothing else.
It makes you wonder if when Congress passes health care reform, they will all stand in front of the cameras with people who finally have access to health care and claim credit for providing it. Don’t bet against it.
