Camp: Report Confirms Failure of Stimulus to “Save or Create” Jobs
9.4% unemployment rate HIGHER than Administration forecast WITHOUT “stimulus”
WASHINGTON, DC – Following the jobs report this morning, Ways and Means Ranking Member Dave Camp (R-MI) released the following statement:
“Jobs have not been saved—they have been lost. And, thousands more will be out of work this summer as GM and Chrysler lay off workers, shutter plants and eliminate dealerships – the ripple effect of which will be felt throughout U.S. manufacturing and across the nation.
“Worse yet, and while so many families are struggling, the President is racing to pass a new national energy tax and trillions in new taxes to pay for increased healthcare spending. These new taxes will only further harm our economy and families.”
Camp also released the graphic below from a January 2009 report prepared by the President’s economic advisers about the expected economic effects of the “stimulus” plan (1). The only changes are the insertion of the actual unemployment rate (in red) for the months since the President’s signing of the Democrat “stimulus” law (2).
As the graphic displays, the May 2009 unemployment rate of 9.4 percent is HIGHER than the worst unemployment rate the President’s economists predicted WITHOUT passage of the “stimulus” law.
Contrary to Administration predictions of jobs “saved and created” as a result of the stimulus law, the Department of Labor reported June 5 another 345,000 jobs were eliminated in May. Total employment in the U.S. now stands at 132.2 million, down by 1.5 million just in the three months since President Obama signed the stimulus law in February.
1.See page 4 of http://otrans.3cdn.net/45593e8ecbd339d074_l3m6bt1te.pdf
2.Harvard economist Greg Mankiw has done a similar analysis in prior months: http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2009/05/accountability.html
2.Harvard economist Greg Mankiw has done a similar analysis in prior months: http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2009/05/accountability.html
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