Dems’ “Recovery Summer” Has Bombed: Job-Killing Stimulus Projects, Jobless Claims “Unexpectedly” Jump Again… Thank You, Mr. President (video)
Posted By Vicki McClure Davidson on August 20, 2010
If there are any Americans who still believe that Team Obama’s ill-conceived, multi-BILLION-dollar stimulus package will eventually, actually stimulate the economy, they may also believe in free lunches and unicorns. And believe that the bumbling Keystone Kop Democrats in Congress will be able to hold onto its majority control after November 2.
Obama’s stimulus/porkulus program has NOT created any significant nor sustainable number of jobs (and you can’t count those temporary census worker jobs, which were budgeted long before King Obama was on the scene, but they try to sneak in anyway).
It’s now being revealed that in addition to millions of dollars of stimulus money being lost or stolen under VP Gaffemeister Biden’s asleep-at-the-wheel oversight, bogus data and deliberate over-reporting, a number of stimulus-funded projects are, in fact, KILLING jobs.
Yes. Killing jobs. Exact opposite of The One’s “grand plan.”
That’s just peachy.
The Daily Caller has posted a list of a few job-killing stimulus projects. This is just one of them, in Sevierville, Tennessee.
THANK YOU, MR. PRESIDENT.
Highway 66 in Sevierville, Tenn.
In Sevierville, Tenn., at a cost of more than $38 million, construction on a four-mile stretch of Highway 66 has significantly reduced the amount of traffic to area businesses. Local enterprises that prospered a year ago are now under severe strain due the impediments the stimulus construction on the road has inflicted.
Larry Bower, manager at Buddy’s Bar-B-Q told TheDC that business has dropped off precipitously since construction began in October. Business has declined to such an extent that he has had to halve his staff, going from an average of 26 employees to 12. “Supposedly this project will be done in November of next year,” Bower said. “If only they could get this danged road finished my business might survive.”
A Zaxby’s restaurant on the highway has been hit hard. “We have lost 40 to 50 percent of the business we had been doing historically,” owner Fred Ware told TheDC. “We did not hire as many for the summer season and we’ve been having to get creative to keep people on … I doubt it will be done by November of next year. They haven’t even started on the bridge which will take a year, year and a half.”
Rick Arnold, owner and manager of Jersey Mike’s on the same highway told TheDC that he has lost upward of 50 percent of his business, had to cut staff hours and now must close on Sundays. “I’ve tried to contact some of my congresspeople,” he said. “This is not how the stimulus was supposed to work. It is literally driving our businesses into the ground.”
For more stimulus information, check out the Summertime Blues Report spearheaded by Sen. Coburn and Sen. McCain. Daily Caller points out some interesting discoveries, including these nuggets: “Coburn and McCain’s report revealed a wealth of foolish projects, including half a million dollars to replace windows at an already-shuttered visitor center at Mount St. Helens, $71,623 to study the effects of cocaine on monkeys and $2 million to photograph ants in the Southwest Indian Ocean and East Africa.” Should make for some enlightening reading over the weekend while you’re sitting at home, unable to afford a family get-away vacation.
I — and you do, too, admit it — want to know more about that “monkeys on cocaine experiment” we taxpayers paid for.
Michelle Malkin reported today on microchip-implanted trash bins in Cleveland — paid for with stimulus money — that TATTLE to city collectors when residents haven’t recycled… and then fine them $100 bucks (bet the socialist enviro-nuts wanted the fine to be bigger): Your porkulus dollars at work: Eco-snitch trash cans. George Orwell is rolling over in his grave.
Pres. Obama is persistent in telling the nation that all is going well, even when the cold-truth facts (and growing unemployment numbers) prove he’s dead wrong. He keeps repeating in press conferences, like a mindless, string-pull Chatty Cathy doll, that “we’re headed in the right direction.”
And what direction, pray tell, that, Mr. President? The road to economic, socialist hell?
From The Hill, White House’s ‘recovery summer’ could be slipping away:
A new Labor Department report that shows an unexpected jump in jobless claims may be the death knell for the White House’s “recovery summer.”
The Department of Labor announced seasonally adjusted applications for unemployment insurance increased to 500,000 last week, the highest level for the claims since mid-November.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell more than 150 points Thursday morning after the claims report was released.
Jobless claims have increased four of the past five weeks, providing strong evidence that employers aren’t hiring amid the weak economic recovery. The modest job growth in recent months has been reflected in the national unemployment rate, which has held steady at 9.5 percent since June.
The weak job numbers are raising fears that the private sector may actually cut more jobs than it adds in August, which would likely cause the unemployment rate to rise. That scenario would be a political blow to Democrats, who fear Republicans will ride a wave of voter discontent on the economy to majorities in the House and Senate this fall.
From San Francisco Examiner, Recovery Summer’ goes bust:
Declaring a “Recovery Summer” victory tour at the start of June must have looked like a pretty safe wager for the Obama administration. The economy seemed to have shifted firmly into gear during spring. Lawrence Summers, director of the National Economic Council, told the Financial Times in early April that the economy was “moving toward escape velocity. You hear a lot less talk of ‘W’-shaped recoveries and double-dips than you did six months ago.”
A big reason for White House optimism was a stronger job market. The economy added an average of 320,000 net new jobs a month during March, April and May, about half of them in the private sector. Granted, the unemployment rate still hovered close to 10 percent. But if the economy kept growing at a 3 percent annual clip or greater — creating lots and lots of new jobs in the process — unemployment would eventually fall, perhaps dramatically.
Since then, however, the economy has fallen back to Earth, and “Recovery Summer” looks more like a bad bet. Private sector job growth has fallen by two-thirds, and the unemployment rate is still at a sky-high 9.5 percent. And if the size of the U.S. work force, as measured by the Labor Department, had stayed constant since April — instead of shrinking by a million — the unemployment rate would be 10.4 percent. Jobless claims are at their highest level since February. Worse yet, the expansion is decelerating. After growing by 5.7 percent in the final quarter of 2009 and 3.7 percent in the first quarter of 2010, gross domestic product advanced by just 2.4 percent from April through June, according to the Commerce Department.
The White House didn’t count on a summer swoon. Then again, it has suffered bouts of premature and unfounded economic optimism before, a malady that has led it to make a number of losing bets and faulty assumptions — which, in turn, have created an even worse environment for growth and jobs.
Unemployment percentage comparison, by president.
Video rewind…
Charles Krauthammer: Waste Shows Stimulus Was a Payoff, Not a Jobs Creator
Additional related reading:
Gateway Pundit: Bombshell… Colorada Dem Michael Bennet Admits: “We Have a $13 Trillion Debt & Nothing to Show For It” and GOP Leader Boehner Calls For Obama’s Economic Team to Resign and Joe Biden Admits: “Voter’s Anger & Frustration Understandable Given High Unemployment & Sluggish Economy” and Beautiful!… Dem’s First Ad Asks Voters to Choose Between Bush’s Pro-Business Policies or Current Ruin and It’s Time to Admit It: Obamanomics Are a Complete Disaster and US TAXPAYERS ARE FUNDING MOSQUE CONSTRUCTION and Democrats: Say, Let’s Exempt Rich People in Blue States From Tax Hike! and Recovery Slumber: Consumers Stop Consuming and Obama July Deficit of $167 Billion Tops Bush Deficit For Entire Year of 2007: and As Michelle Returns From Spanish Extravaganza Obama Cuts Food Stamps to Nation’s Poor and IT’S OFFICIAL: Barack Obama Is Worst Jobs President Since Great Depression and After US Economy Loses Another 125,000 Jobs Obama Says: “We’re Heading in the Right Direction” (Video) and Custard Store Owner: Biden Went Off On Me, I Was Shocked and Biden Admits Obama Administration Won’t Be Able to Create Lost Jobs and Private Sector Lost Nearly 10 Million Jobs in Last 3 Years – Public Sector Gained 720,000 and Republican Sandoval Leads Rory What’s-His-Name By 18% In Nevada Governor’s Race and Rep Paul Ryan: By Every Objective Measure The Stimulus Has Failed (Video)
Bob McCarty, Big Government: One Battle Ends, Another Begins for Nail Salon Owner
Radio Vice Online: In United States, 17% work for the government
Frugal Café Blog Zone: CA Budget Woes: Arnold “The Governator” Schwarzenegger Wants to Issue IOUs Again for California’s Bills and Federal Deficit Grows Like a Pot-bellied Pig, Government Spending in July Hit $160.04 Billion and More Bleak “Hopenchange”… Record-Breaking: More Than 780,000 Families in Illinois Receiving Food Stamps and Obama & Reid, Two of a Kind: Responsible for Nevada’s Broken, Decimated Economy, Highest Rate of Home Foreclosures in Nation, Angle Slams Reid (video) and Bad News: Police Layoffs of Up to 30 Percent for East St. Louis… Blame It on Obama’s Terrible Economy and More Bad News for Dems: 75% of Americans Say Free Market Principles Better Than Government Manipulation & Interference… Obama’s Approval Index Drops to -19 and Rasmussen’s Prez Approval Index for Obama… Déjà Vu at Dismal Minus 17, Unemployment Improves Only Because Americans Have Lost Hope, Stopped Looking for Work and “Duh” Files: Obama’s Approval Drops Like a Metamorphic Rock in Arizona… Disapproval of POTUS Worsening on Economy, Illegal Immigration, Job Markets and Oops: VP Biden’s Campaign Owes Treasury $219,000 Due to “Sloppy Bookkeeping” & Excessive Contributions… Biden’s Still in Charge of Watchdogging Wasteful Stimulus Program
Blue Crab Boulevard: “Recovery Summer” Churns On
JammieWearingFool: Shhh: Rich Democrats Are Getting Richer
Another Black Conservative: Washington adds another $165 billion to deficit in July alone
Missouri Political News Service: WSJ Notes Another Stimulus Promise Broken; ABC: ‘Summer Of Recovery’ Simply ‘Hasn’t Materialized”
The Clue Batting Cage: Welfare
The Daily Beast: Top Obama Adviser Romer Quits
Camp of the Saints: Rally ‘Round The Flag: Message From A Friend
Nice Deb: The Summer of Our Discontent
Ace of Spades HQ: Obama Two Points Higher Than 39%
Telegraph: With the US trapped in depression, this really is starting to feel like 1932
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