The hated stimulus saved and created between 3 million and 4 million jobs and actually put this great country back on a path to prosperity. The problem was that we actually lost 8 million jobs before the stimulus had time to kick in. Every penny spent and what it did is published on-line. Read the New, New Deal by Michael Grundwald and educate yourself to all the things that this remarketable bill actually does for the USA.

I did, years ago. But this Big Lie is persistent.

At the end of February, 2009, the WSJ did publish “a write up” about this very issue, claiming “unemployment rate at the end of President Barack Obama‘s term in 2013 will be just 5.2%, according to the White House”. No other media sources published these numbers because it they were not accurate, and this nonsense has been debunked since then.

Repeatedly, fact checker PolitiFact could find NO EVIDENCE of anyone in the administration promising the stimulus would bring unemployment below 8%. (PolitiFact 10.13.2011.)

Let’s get to the root of this misinformation:

It’s apparently based a report written WEEKS before President Obama took office by transition team on the president’s Council of Economic Advisers, called Job Impact of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan – the brief projected stimulus spending could create 3 to 4 million jobs.

No one had a complete picture of just how bad things were at the time, so the report came with severe disclaimers – “significant margins of error” – “fundamental uncertainty”- “forecasts vary”.

No clue where the staff at the WSJ found their numbers back then either. As the depth of this Recession unfolded, it proved all those forecasts wrong, including the WSJ. I stand by my original post that the President NEVER MADE THAT CLAIM.

37% passed as promised, 14% passed with compromise. 51% was a failing grade in every school I attended. Here are some of the major promises broken.

Create Transparency in Washington – Failed
Publicize the Health Care Debate on TV – Failed (Backroom deal)
Create a Bi-Partisan atmosphere in Washington – Failed (yell obstructionism all you want, leadership starts at the top)
Close Guantanamo – Failed
Reduce Health Insurance Premiums for the average family by $ 2,500 – Failed
Reduce unemployment below 8% with stimulus – Failed
Pass comprehensive immigration reform – Failed (executive decree doesn’t count)
Keep lobbyists out of the White House – Failed big time
10 billion dollar Foreclosure prevention fund – Failed

But to be fair there are some things he has achieved:

“Under my plan energy costs would necessarily skyrocket” – A rousing success
Obamacare – Passed although wildly unpopular (and not yet proven to achieve lower costs)
Bin Laden – Dead (i will give him credit)
GM – Alive through Union pension bailout (Our greatest Auto manufacturer is now owned partially by the US taxpayer and the United Auto Workers Union)
Controlling what snacks my kids can and can’t eat in school and what I have to pack in their lunch – success

This man is a complete disaster as president. Maybe he needs to go back to the Senate where he can vote “present” for another 16 years or so….

I guess the joke is on those who believe that debunked Right Wing myth. Fact check and it’s easy to see the President NEVER MADE THAT CLAIM.

Many Republicans have claimed that Obama “promised his stimulus package would bring the national unemployment rate below 8%. That Right Wing fiction simply is not true according to PolitFact.

It’s the Republican zombie rumor that won’t die. And it is one more piece of “empty” fluff without addressing where Mitt Romney stands on real issues.

Oh, how about passing a trillion dollar stimulus of borrowed tax payer money and promising it would lower the Unemployment Rate to 5.6%… Ha ha, what a whopper!!! You would at least think Obama would have the common decency to apologize the the american people at his convention that he was waaaayyy off that promise. But then again, if he did that, it would open up a whole other can of worms like what the stimulus money actually went to. Ie 500M to Solyndra and other crony pet projects.