Four More Years of Stimulus?

October 29, 2012

Four More Years of Stimulus?

President Obama Suggests the Reason His Stimulus Failed Is Because Democrats Didn’t Spend Enough

  • President Obama’s previously off-the-record interview with the Des Moines Register got a great deal of attention, but one of the president’s most revealing comments has been ignored. The president doubled down on his stimulus, arguing that he would have spent more if only Republicans would have let him.  

  • Democrats refuse to learn from the failure of their first $833 billion stimulus that doled out taxpayer dollars to now-bankrupt companies and failed to live up to its promises.

  • It’s shocking that despite growing the national debt by $5.5 trillion, Democrats think the problem is that they didn’t spend enough. Working families just can’t afford four more years of the Democrats’ spending.

President Obama’s previously off-the-record interview with the Des Moines Register got a great deal of attention, but one of the president’s most revealing comments has been ignored. The president doubled down on his stimulus, arguing that he would have spent more if only Republicans would have let him:

DES MOINES REGISTER TO OBAMA: WHY DIDN’T YOU FOCUS MORE ON THE ECONOMY?: “Do you have any regrets taking on some of the economic issues, some of the issues that we’re talking about for your second term, that when you had the chance, so to speak, during your first — do you have any regrets that you didn’t do that at that time?” (“After Editor’s Blog, President Obama Releases Transcript of Register Interview,” The Des Moines Register, 10/24/2012)

OBAMA: NO WAY “WE WOULD HAVE GOTTEN ADDITIONAL STIMULUS OUT OF THE REPUBLICANS”: “And the suggestion somehow that if we hadn’t pursued Obamacare, somehow we would have gotten additional stimulus out of the Republicans, for example, that we could have primed the pump more, that’s just not borne out by any of the evidence.” (“After Editor’s Blog, President Obama Releases Transcript of Register Interview,” The Des Moines Register, 10/24/2012)

TRANSLATION: MORE STIMULUS SPENDING WOULD HAVE BEEN BETTER: (“After Editor’s Blog, President Obama Releases Transcript of Register Interview,” The Des Moines Register, 10/24/2012)

JOE BIDEN HAS SAID THE SAME: STIMULUS “WOULD HAVE BEEN BIGGER” IF NOT FOR GOP: “Was the $862 billion stimulus too small? It probably would have been bigger, Vice President Joe Biden said, if it weren’t for Republican opposition in early 2009.” (Evan Harris, “Stimulus ‘Would Have Been Bigger’ But for GOP,” ABC News, 7/18/2010)

Democrats refuse to learn from the failure of their first $833 billion stimulus that doled out taxpayer dollars to now-bankrupt companies and failed to live up to its promises:

PRICE TAG FOR FAILED STIMULUS: $833 BILLION:(Congressional Budget Office, 8/23/2012)

AP: “ECONOMIC RECOVERY IS THE WEAKEST SINCE WORLD WAR II”: (Paul Wiseman, “Economic Recovery is the Weakest Since World War II,” Associated Press, 8/15/2012)

MEDIAN INCOME WAS $55,198 WHEN OBAMA TOOK OFFICE; IT IS $50,678 TODAY: (“Household Income Down 8.2 Percent Since Obama Took Office,” Fox News, 9/26/2012)

STUDY: U.S. INCOMES FELL MORE AFTER STIMULUS THAN DURING RECESSION: (Jeff Kearn, “U.S. Incomes Fell More in Recovery, Sentier Says,” Bloomberg, 8/23/2012)

UNEMPLOYMENT RATE AT 7.8%, SAME AS IT WAS WHEN OBAMA TOOK OFFICE, 10.7% IF WORKFORCE PARTICIPATION WAS THE SAME: (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Accessed 10/5/2012)

DEMOCRATS PROMISED STIMULUS WOULD BRING UNEMPLOYMENT RATE TO 5.6% BY NOW: (Christina Romer and Jared Bernstein, “The Job Impact Of The American Recovery And Reinvestment Plan,” 1/9/09)

SOLYNDRA: TAXPAYERS TO RECOVER JUST $24 MILLION OF $527 MILLION LENT TO NOW-BANKRUPT SOLYNDRA: “Last week, Solyndra’s final liquidation plan estimated that the government will recover just $24 million of the $527 million that taxpayers lent to the company.” (Joe Stephens and Carol Leonnig, “White House Analyst Warned Saving Solyndra Could Cost More Than Letting It Fail,” The Washington Post, 8/1/12)

“REPORT: TAXPAYER LOSS DUE TO SOLYNDRA MAY BE AS HIGH AS $849 MILLION”:(Sean Higgins, “Report: Taxpayer Loss Due to Solyndra May Be as High as $849 Million,” The Washington Examiner, 10/22/2012)

OBAMA’S “GREEN” PROGRAM “INFUSED WITH POLITICS AT EVERY LEVEL”: “Meant to create jobs and cut reliance on foreign oil, Obama’s green-technology program was infused with politics at every level, The Washington Post found in an analysis of thousands of memos, company records and internal ­e-mails. Political considerations were raised repeatedly by company investors, Energy Department bureaucrats and White House officials.

“The records, some previously unreported, show that when warned that financial disaster might lie ahead, the administration remained steadfast in its support for Solyndra.” (Joe Stephens and Carol D. Leonnig, “Solyndra: Politics Infused Obama Energy Programs,” The Washington Post, 12/25/2011)

CONGRESSIONAL REPORT: “POLITICAL PRESSURE” TO BLAME FOR FAST-TRACKED LOAN TO NOW-BANKRUPT SOLYNDRA: (“E-mails Show Ex-Solyndra CEO Thanked ‘Bank of Washington,’ as New Report Rips Loan Process,” Fox News, 8/2/2012)

STIMULUS CRONY CAPITALISM? WASHINGTON POST AUDIT FOUND $3.9 BILLION IN TAXPAYER MONEY WENT TO “21 COMPANIES WITH CONNECTIONS TO FIVE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION STAFFERS AND ADVISERS”: “During the next three years, the department provided $2.4 billion in public funding to clean-energy companies in which Wagle’s former firm, Vantage Point Venture Partners, had invested, a Washington Post analysis found. Overall, the Post found that $3.9 billion in federal grants and financing flowed to 21 companies backed by firms with connections to five Obama administration staffers and advisers.” (Carol Leonnig and Joe Stephens, “Venture Capitalists Play Key Role in Obama’s Energy Department,” The Washington Post, 2/14/2012)

It’s shocking that despite growing the national debt by $5.5 trillion, Democrats think the problem is that they didn’t spend enough. Working families just can’t afford four more years of the Democrats’ spending:

BUT $5.57 TRILLION INCREASE IN NATIONAL DEBT SINCE OBAMA TOOK OFFICE: (“The Daily History of the Debt Results,” Bureau of the Public Debt, Accessed 10/26/2012)

NATIONAL DEBT CURRENTLY STANDS AT $16.20 TRILLION; SIZE OF NATION’S ECONOMY AT $15.59 TRILLION: (“The Daily History of the Debt Results,” Bureau of the Public Debt, Accessed 10/26/2012; Bureau of Economic Analysis, 9/27/2012) 

STUDY: ANNUAL COST OF OBAMA’S DEBT AMOUNTS TO $4,000 A YEAR IN HIGHER TAXES ON THE MIDDLE CLASS: “In a new paper, AEI’s Aspen Gorry and Matt Jensen look at the real annual cost of servicing the debt for households at various levels of income — including a potentially higher tax burden. As the table below illustrates, a household making between $100,000 and $200,000 a year could find its tax liability higher by roughly $2,400 every year. Over ten years, that works out to $24,000. And when you add in the debt already accrued the past four years under President Obama (the second table), that’s another $1,600 a year. So now we are now talking about $4,000 a year, $40,000 over ten years.” (James Pethokoukis, “Study: Obama’s Big Budget Deficits Could Mean A $4,000 A Year Middle-Class Tax Hike,” American Enterprise Institute, 10/2/12)

POLITIFACT SAID LAST YEAR THAT OBAMA WAS THE “UNDISPUTED DEBT KING OF THE LAST FIVE PRESIDENTS”: “Obama is the undisputed debt king of the last five presidents, rather than the guy who added a piddling mount to the debt.” (Louis Jacobson, “Nancy Pelosi Posts Questionable Chart on Debt Accumulation by Barack Obama, Predecessors,” Politifact, 5/19/2011) 

THREE YEARS AND TWO MONTHS OF OBAMA WAS MORE DEBT THAN EIGHT YEARS OF PREDECESSOR: “The National Debt has now increased more during President Obama’s three years and two months in office than it did during 8 years of the George W. Bush presidency. The Debt rose $4.899 trillion during the two terms of the Bush presidency. It has now gone up $4.939 trillion since President Obama took office.” (Mark Knoller, “National Debt Has Increased More Under Obama than Under Bush,” CBS News, 3/19/2012)

OBAMA RECORD “THE MOST RAPID INCREASE IN THE DEBT UNDER ANY U.S. PRESIDENT”: (Mark Knoller, “National debt has increased $4 trillion under Obama,” CBS News’ Political Hotsheet Blog, 8/22/2011)

CHINA OWNS $1.15 TRILLION IN U.S. DEBT: (“Major Foreign Holders of Treasury Securities,” U.S. Department of the Treasury, 10/16/2012)

Four More Years of Stimulus? http://ow.ly/ePCCQ