Obama on 10,000th Recovery Act Project: a ‘Big Deal’
EmailKirit Radia reports: At a road construction project funded by the Recovery Act in Columbus, Ohio today the President tried to jumpstart talk of, in the White House’s own words, a ‘Recovery Summer’ ahead of this year’s midterm elections. “I return to Columbus to mark a milestone on the road to recovery: the 10,000th project launched under the recovery act. That’s worth a big round of applause,” President Obama said, standing next to several construction workers and a bevy of officials. President Obama paraphrased his VP’s take on the health care bill’s passage, saying this is a “big <pause> deal.” Livingston Avenue in Columbus is being widened with stimulus dollars, and is expected to generate 300 construction jobs in the area. The White House says this project is the 10,000th one funded by the Recovery Act since it was passed last year. “I think it’s fitting that we’ve reached this milestone here in this community, because what you’re doing here is a perfect example of the kind of innovation and coordination and renewal that the recovery act is driving all across the country. A lot of people came together to make this day possible — business and government, grassroots organizations, ordinary citizens who are committed to this city’s futures. And what you’re starting here is more than just a project to repair a road. It’s a partnership to transform a community,” the president said. He also struck back at lawmakers who say continued investments would be too costly. “The truth is, if we want to keep on adding jobs, we want to keep on raising incomes, if we want to keep growing both our economy and our middle class, if we want to ensure that Americans can compete with any nation in the world, we’re going to have to get serious about our long-term vision for this country and we’re going to have to get serious about our infrastructure. And I want to say a few words about infrastructure generally,” he said, reiterating his call for more infrastructure investments in transportation and internet connectivity. “We’ve got a huge backlog of work just with the infrastructure that we’ve got. They could put hundreds of thousands of people to work all across the country just repairing roads that we already have and fixing sewer lines that are badly in need of repair,” he said. President Obama was joined on stage by Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, Ohio Governor Ted Strickland, Lt Gov Lee Fisher, and Mayor Michael Coleman. He was accompanied from Washington by Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown and several members of Congress. The audience of about 35 elected officials and workers was outnumbered by the press corps. According to the White House, Columbus and surrounding Franklin County have received $729 million from the Recovery Act. -Kirit Radia
Biden Reflects on Grief, Suicidal Thoughts 
Is Congress Sounding Dumber?
Recovery? Are you kidding? This has to be the joke of this century! This incompetent administration is bungling the clean-up in the Gulf as badly they have bungled the economy! It doesn’t get any worse than this!!
Posted by: Sunnyr | June 18, 2010, 4:54 pm 4:54 pm
I used to support President Barack Hussein Obama, I really did, but with all due respect, Barack Hussein is “Big Deal”ing… bridges to nowhere! Seriously, yeah, yippee, you built a bunch of roads that no one needs. Why? Don’t we have bigger problems, like not running up the federal deficit? No, really, all you’re doing is spending money. Who doesn’t know how to spend money? Why don’t you just give it to ACORN? “har har, I ‘invested’ $100,000,000.00 into the American economy, aka handouts to ACORN. har har.” It is time we had a President who doesn’t run up ruinous budget deficits for handouts, bridges to nowhere, and ACORN. It is time for Palin ’12, PUMA!
Posted by: Obamacrat for Palin | June 18, 2010, 5:04 pm 5:04 pm
Recovery based on “shovel ready” jobs in construction just doesn’t make sense even in Ohio. A factory worker who lost his job because of GM’s bankruptcy isn’t qualified to take those jobs. Historically,the majority of construction jobs are primarily temporary jobs that often don’t provide benefits. The money proided to the construction workers does get spent into the economy which may provide some minor increase in service jobs, but only temporarily just as the jobs are. Hence the volatility of the unemployment numbers that we keep seeing. The positive numbers the President keeps pointing to seem to be the speed bumps in the downhill road he has us on with their deficit spending.
Posted by: Keith | June 18, 2010, 5:15 pm 5:15 pm
It is amusing to see him patting himself on the back, for wasting billions of money, doing nothing of importance.
The unemployment rate is still at near 10%, with people who have already been out of work, 2 yrs. or more, and who cannot even get an interview.
I call him, the “backward priority” President. All he could think about, was not jobs…..but health care that almost NO ONE wanted!
Now we see the impact of that, as all those who HAVE insurance are seeing major increases in rates, and cuts in benefits. Thanks a lot…..for screwing everything up.
Posted by: Rick McDaniel | June 18, 2010, 5:20 pm 5:20 pm
Recovery if you are a casino in Connecticut.
This “jobless recovery” is a series of political payoffs.
Paunch, this is embarassing reporting, sort of like the “good week” for the president. Even Olbermann can see that this week was a mess. The gulf situation is chaos, deliberate Cloward Piven chaos that will get us the skyrocketing energy prices Obama promised.
Stop shilling
Posted by: CLN | June 18, 2010, 5:30 pm 5:30 pm
What the President has forgotten, if he ever really knew, is that any substantive recovery is driven by the private sector. His policies are too anti-business. The real money is sitting on the sidelines unsure of where this government is going. The best thing we can do is to put the brakes on this guy and vote in a bunch of anti-obama people. An assurance that he can’t get Cap and Trade Passed or other socialistic bills will kick start the economy and we’ll finally get some real jobs.
Posted by: Noz | June 18, 2010, 5:45 pm 5:45 pm
How many of the 10,000 projects are the people who received jobs still working?
Posted by: Joe Conover | June 18, 2010, 5:53 pm 5:53 pm
I am sure it is tough for people in the crowd to shake the president’s hand b/c he is too busy patting himself on the back.
Posted by: Jim Tayberry | June 18, 2010, 6:12 pm 6:12 pm
If gubermint spending was good for the economy, we would be at full employment. Give the people’s money back to them and let them decide how to spend the money and the economy will grow.
The problem with this adminstration, they never had to meet a payroll and don’t under basic business. He is great with a teleprompter but other than that he is clueless.
We will not have a recovery unless we elect fiscal conservatives into office. We are getting rid of specter and hopefully PA will see that casey gets the boot in 2 years.
Posted by: rebecca2656 | June 18, 2010, 6:23 pm 6:23 pm
Good Job. Those jobless claims that keep “unexpectedly rising” are just a minor irritant. Remember all the jobs we saved and created, even in non existent Congressional districts. Soon,after the next small dip, you know when the Dow hits 5000, and gold reaches $1500 we will have another stimulus, but this time we will do 5 trillion. The world will begin a new reserve currency and you will love the government bonds you’ll be mandated to buy in your retirement accounts. Safety first,of course.
Posted by: pauldia | June 18, 2010, 6:53 pm 6:53 pm
The responses here so far could be straight out of a FOX News blog. I’m almost beginning to feel partisan again.
Posted by: jane | June 18, 2010, 7:20 pm 7:20 pm
Obama Ohio trip cost ‘between $500K and $1 million’; Spoke for 10 minutes…
another “shakedown” by the corrupt, leftwing extremeist snakeoil salesman
Posted by: This IS obamas Katrina | June 18, 2010, 7:21 pm 7:21 pm
OBAMA VS AMERICA
Posted by: This IS obamas Katrina | June 18, 2010, 7:23 pm 7:23 pm
There he goes again.Whats he running for now. DISCUSTING.
Posted by: Joeray | June 18, 2010, 7:49 pm 7:49 pm
“The audience of about 35 elected officials and workers was outnumbered by the press corps.”- Well of course it was…it’s not like there is anything else news-worthy going on anywhere else…(glug, glug, bubble, bubble, glug.)
Posted by: cindy | June 18, 2010, 7:49 pm 7:49 pm
“….this is a big deal”. Reminds me of an seventh grader putting his middle finger on his knee during the class picture.
Posted by: BigGuy | June 18, 2010, 8:54 pm 8:54 pm
“The best thing we can do is to put the brakes on this guy and vote in a bunch of anti-obama people”
I assume you mean voting in a bunch of Republicans. We already tried that, remember? It was a complete disaster.
Posted by: Skip | June 18, 2010, 9:11 pm 9:11 pm
“We will not have a recovery unless we elect fiscal conservatives into office”
I hope you’re not trying to pass of Republicans as fiscal conservatives again since we all know that’s a joke. We don’t expect Republicans to be able to fix huge messes that Republicans make.
Posted by: Skip | June 18, 2010, 9:21 pm 9:21 pm
If you believe that Obama has turned the economy around, then you probably also believe he was fully engaged on day one of the oil spill.
You probably also believe in unicorns.
Posted by: kyle | June 18, 2010, 10:35 pm 10:35 pm
A photo=op that cost us $500K and cost local workers a day’s pay.
Obama does not care how much money he wastes as long as it’s not his.
Posted by: hank | June 18, 2010, 10:37 pm 10:37 pm
Skip. the disaster happened after the Democrats took control of Congress.Things were going well until Pelosi bacame Speaker. Now that Obama is pretending to be President things are going completely to hell.
Posted by: Nephron | June 18, 2010, 10:49 pm 10:49 pm
“Things were going well until Pelosi bacame Speaker”
If the Democrats were obviously ruining everything why were the Palin/McCain campaign and the Bush administration insisting that the economy was strong right up until the rest of the investment banks started to go the way of Bear Stearns? Were they covering for the Democrats or were they too stupid to see what was going on?
Posted by: Skip | June 18, 2010, 11:53 pm 11:53 pm
Things were going well until Pelosi bcame Speaker-you still haven’t refuted that statement.What McCain/Palin said was irrelevant.Facts are difficult to ignore.
Posted by: Nephron | June 19, 2010, 12:05 am 12:05 am
Let’s not forget that prior to the election the Democratic controlled Congress was being maligned from right and left as the ‘do nothing’ Congress. How could they crash the economy by doing nothing?…unless unchanged the legislative policies set up previously [Republican] were already headed for failure. If you really want to try and prove otherwise list the legislation the Democrats passed [over numerous Bush vetoes] which actually had a detrimental effect on the economy [they would have had to override a veto or it means Bush agreed with it]. My bet is you will not, because you cannot, because they did not.
Posted by: Skip | June 19, 2010, 12:19 am 12:19 am
“Things were going well until Pelosi bcame Speaker-you still haven’t refuted that statement”
No, things only LOOKED like they were going well until Pelosi became speaker. The election was a referendum on Republican policies, like the Iraq war, and Bush&Company were trying to keep the economic bubble sham going long enough to get Palin into the White House…they didn’t make it.
Posted by: Skip | June 19, 2010, 12:28 am 12:28 am
“long enough to get Palin into the White House”
Goodness! I forgot about McCain…but hasn’t everyone else?
Posted by: Skip | June 19, 2010, 12:37 am 12:37 am
Let’s see… the previous 9,999 have failed to deliver… so the 10,000 is a big deal? How so?
Posted by: Quo Warranto? | June 19, 2010, 12:50 am 12:50 am
I don’t understand something. Bush let Enron go down in flames, then bailed out the banks. Oh wait a minute it was after the election and Mr. Obamba wanted it done.
Posted by: Debbie | June 20, 2010, 2:28 am 2:28 am