Stimulus a Waste of Your Money?

Republicans seized on recent polling Monday by USA Today that shows a majority of Americans think the Democrats' nearly $800 billion fiscal stimulus package "has cost too much and done to little to end of the recession."

“By any objective standard, the Democrats’ trillion-dollar ‘stimulus’ isn’t working," said House Republican Leader John Boehner in a statement released by his office. "The administration promised the ‘stimulus’ would provide a ‘jolt’ to our economy and create jobs immediately, but 2.8 million more Americans have lost their jobs since the ‘stimulus’ became law."

“Six months ago today, President Obama signed a stimulus bill with the promise that government spending would put Americans back to work," said Indiana Rep. Mike Pence, the third-ranking Republican in the House. "Congress was told that borrowing another $1 trillion would prevent unemployment from rising over 8% nationwide. With the loss of more than two million jobs since the stimulus was signed and unemployment at 9.4%, the results are in: the stimulus isn't working."

Fifty-seven percent of the respondents to the USA Today/Gallup poll believe the stimulus isn't having any impact on the economy or is making things worse. Sixty percent of those polled don't think the $787 billion package of spending and tax cuts will have any impact in the future. And perhaps the worst news for Democrats at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue is that only 18 percent of respondents think the package has improved their personal situation.

The poll also showed that 54 percent of Americans think the economy will still be in a recession a year from now, and 78 percent of the respondents are either "very worried" (46 percent) or "somewhat worried" (32 percent) that the stimulus money "is being wasted."

Obama and Vice President Joe Biden have worked hard this summer to sell communities on the impact of the stimulus, holding press events in cities and towns across the country to make the case that the stimulus helped soften the impact of a global economic contraction.

— Patrick O'Connor

Politico