CNN

I agree with Obama. The package was only a slither of the deficit the last president put us in. And if McCain was elected, the stock market would have definitely crashed if nothing was done.

We avoided a depression with this deal, we are still in a recession, but I know by the end of this year, we will be out of this mess and focus on reforming health care and other objectives.

Shocked I tell you. Shocked! You mean you can't just waive the magical wand and the economy will be fixed in a few months? You mean you can't just go hire a couple hundred thousand people in a month or two? Any half wit knows fixing a problem this big takes time.

Please America don't tell me you are so sound bite oriented that you fall for this Republican ignorance.

Obama was clear from the beginning. We got here over a period of decades. It is going to take a while to heal.

Obama said the Stimulis would create 3 to 4 million jobs,Create not save.How many jobs did it create to study the Odor of pig farms,Or pay AIG bonuses,or to save a frickin marsh mouse in the San Francisco Bay area,Or pave another runway for Murtha's air port that is virtually un-used?..We have Lost 2 million jobs since the stimulis has been signed,and it has done nothing but create short term Employment if any....Now its wait,to lose your job and go on food stamps or welfare till a job magically appears,in a year or so?..Making people depend on welfare does not create jobs,CUTTING CORPORATE TAXES CREATES JOBS.

Hey Obama – I'm getting IOU's instead of paychecks. How is California allowed to get away with this? Do you think if you went into a grocery store and handed the clerk an IOU you would leave the store with groceries? Yet, you can throw billions of dollars at banks and car companies and I can't turn in these IOU;s until October. That leaves July, August and September without cash flow. The federal government needs to intervene in this. I say Impeach the Terminator.

Of course he is going to defend his porkulus bill what would you think he would do, of course we don't know where any of this money is or where it has been spend either do we?

Republicans are so predictable! They have been planning since before Pres. Obama was inaugurated to do nothing to try to fix the economy while Bush was still in office and then planned to blame Obama for the economy at the earliest possible moment after his inauguration to try to bring down his popularity and help them get elected again (I guess they think that this is the time)...Its NOT GOING TO WORK. We support you Pres. Obama. Those of us who have any sense, understand that this mess was not created under you and that the turn-around is going to take awhile. We are patriots, and are asking, how can we help our fellow citizens instead of criticizing and complaining all the time.

Is anyone listening to what the man is saying – the plan was designed to take time. How is anyone in their right mind thinking that – ok it tooks YEARS to get us to this point but it should only take a couple of months to end!
People do have this tendency to hear what they want to hear.

The president needs to start freeing up the stimulus money right now in order to get all of the complainers off his back! If the former president were still in office, the other side would be admonishing the rest of us for our impatience and asking us to give the president more time!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sorry Barry – you blew it.

Is it 2010 or 2012 yet???

Obummer will be voted out of office in 2012

Two years people, not six months! It took eight years of total irresponsibility to get us here, and it is not going to be fixed overnight.

Can you just imagine where we could have been with McCain and Palin right now!

Soup lines and a third War..

[...] See the article here: CNN Political Ticker: All politics, all the time Blog Archive ... [...]

This never run a business, a city or a state fraud SAID that it needed to be passed right away before the Lemocrats had a chance to read it (as they are sheep they voted yes anyway) despite warnings that it was FLAWED from people far smarter than he and had actually RUN something besides their mouths.

Sorry Barry, you own it, you passed it and you BLEEPED it up all on your own.

You STIMULATE the economy by giving TAX PAYERS money back to spend and giving SMALL businesses tax credits for expanding and hiring and you did neither you loser.

All you can do is run your mouth WITH A TELEPROMPTER, you can't run anything else.

Four and the door Barry.

This clear, concise and most importantly economically sound analysis of how the stimulus, and more over our economy, works is in stark contrast to what we hear out of the republican camp.

"NO NO NO NO NO WAAAAAAA NO NO NO NO NO WAAAAAAA"

It's only a $787 stimulus bill? That doesn't seem so bad.

OMG, it has "worked as intended"? Was NOT working the actual plan?#! This president and his slobbering loyalists can spin all they want, but the fact is that this terrible waste of the taxpayer's dollars was flushed down the drain for the main purpose of special projects for political paybacks. His attacks against private business for the last 6 months, while coddling the Unions, has stunted our economy and it will NOT improve until he gets the heck out of the way! Private business will turn our economy around, not government. Note to self: it's called Free Enterprise!

Remember that our President has been in office SIX MONTHS, not six years. Republican conservatives wanted to let a large part of our society to collapse, like that was a healthy philosophy. Our president is working very hard, unlike the bum we had in the White House whose goal was to read more books than his pet monkey aka Rove. We're lucky to have Obama in office, when republicans see Limbaugh as a true American leader who voices ignorance, and stupidity as a republican mantra. Ridiculous.

I'm ready to benefits from the stimulus package!!!!!

The big mistake for President Obama was to have a GOP like stimulus. Instead of giving money directky to people, so they could quickly spend, he gave to uncontrollable recipients. It also has a very long and slow process. Even Bush gave some money directly to people. Obama should have done that even 10 times more.
President Obama has to run the country as a Democrat if he wants to succeed.

Republicans care nothing about too much spending or constituents...They only care about storing up a wealth of campaign arsenal against President Obama......They didn't want him there from the beginning, and continue to oppose him.......Their gamble is that their strategies, taken from "The Rise and Fall of The Third Reich," will pay off........If you think you're suffering now, wait until the GOP gains power again.....

Mr. President, the stimilus plan is not working but you don't know about it while you are sitting in your ivory palace or jetting off around the world for no purpose. CNN,it is not only the republicans that are getting tired of the huge spending with no results. Independents and conservative Democrats are also crying out.

Although some of us tried to say it, you cannot improve the economy by recycling money. The only way to do it is by creating wealth, and that comes from private enterprise and not the government. Had Mr. Obama invested this money in tax breaks for small businesses and consumers, moore goods could be produced because the businesses would have more money to make them and more goods would be purchased because consumers would have more money to buy them. In order to create jobs, money must be invested unto folks that are already working so they can buy more goods, and the demand for more goods equals the need for more workers. For the government to invest publically to create jobs is simply not going to work because no wealth is being created.

This stuff is really simple, but we have allowed politics to create a backwards system based upon trillions in spending that will never be paid. I hope our future generation is comfortable being Chineese.

I'd say the economy is worse now than when the Chosen One took office and passed this outrageous stimilus bill. The only difference is the media continues to lie and say things have improved because they don't want to admit that they're responsible for putting a talking head in office.

Mr. President Obama you are doing a great job as president of the USA. the problem with the republicans is they hear you they are just not LISTENING TO YOU. GOD BLESS YOU MR. PRESIDENT OBAMA.

“In a little over one hundred days,” Obama says in Saturday’s address, the stimulus plan “has worked as intended.”

That is exactly the problem. As the republicans were saying during the ramrod through congress, the stimulus plan wasn't designed as a stimulus bill, it was designed as a pork bill with what little stimulus was in the bill coming too little, too late. The republicans argued that money for jobs should have been front end loaded, the democrats wanted the pork in the front end. So Obama is right, it has worked as intended, which is poorly.

OK - first it was "shovel ready" – then "some months" – now, "over two years". Are you Kool Aid drinkers getting this yet, or do I have to do the math for ya?

“As a result of the swift and aggressive action we took in the first few months of this year, we’ve been able to pull our financial system and our economy back from the brink,” Obama also says.

___

It has??? Unemployment continues to rise, state budgets (California, Pennsylvania, etc.) continue to be in total disarray, prices are soaring. How has the stimulus package helped, other than to continually provide bonuses for government employees?

Change – I think not!

Who does Obama think he's kidding? Unemployment at 9.6 percent and going higher, pork barrel spending beyond comprehension and programs like, cap and trade, stimulous II and healthcare reform coming. This President is an embarrasment and will never see a second term. Wake up America!

President Obama has made the same point he's made since the administration proposed the stimulus: no wavering, no changing his stance at all to help him politically, a la the GOP. That's the measure of a leader, not just keeping his stance on an issue, but explaining why one is keeping that stance while educating the audience on why keelpng that stance is essential. no flip-flopping here. The stimulus will work as intended, slowing the free-fall while getting some down-to-earth (literally) American work done.

How quickly Mr. Obama forgets his first promise to create 1.5 to 2 million new jobs, then it was to SAVE and create 1.5 to 2 million new jobs.

Now its falling back to saving firmen, policemen and teachers jobs and at that the number they quote and can't even verify is 150,000. He just could figure out how to through the Senior Citizens into the pot.

What happens next year when the states don't have the federal bailout money to balance their budgets?

This stimulous is a joke and sadly so is Mr. Obama along with Harry Reid and stupid Nancy Palosi.

“In a little over one hundred days,” Obama says in Saturday’s address, the stimulus plan “has worked as intended.”

Obama intended unemployment to hit 10%? Gee, that's not what he said when trying to convince people that his imbecilic notion to waste a trillion bucks was actually a good idea.

“As a result of the swift and aggressive action we took in the first few months of this year, we’ve been able to pull our financial system and our economy back from the brink.” The brink of what? An even worse disaster? Yeah, right... But I agree it was "swift action." So swift that the members of Congress being strong-armed into passing this idiocy were given, what?, three hours to read a 1300 page document that guaranteed decades of inflation and debt.

In Saturday’s address, Obama also responds to critics who believe the $787 billion bill is not sufficient to turn around the economy and who are, therefore, pushing for another stimulus package.

So having gotten a good start on ruining the American economy, and mortgaging our kids' futures in the process, Obama wants to finish off the country completely. This man needs to be stopped. Now.

Hey Obama... what happened to 8% unemployment if porkulus wasn't passed? What's that? You "misread" the economy?

So how are we to have any confidence you're reading it correctly now?

Hey, CNN, if it only cost $787, probably nobody'd care about it!

Before the far right hate mongers get going with this one, please remember that it took 8 years to make this mess and will probably take at LEAST half that time to fix it.

"We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them."

-Albert Einstein

Sen. Boehner said that his dog couldn't find any jobs from the Stimulus bill last week. There is something else much larger that that dog could find!?!

With only 11% of the stimulus spent, these democrats are clearly playing politics with American livelihoods.

The economy is probably going to turn around but only when almost all the stimulus is spread to the people and small business…which will probably be around November of 2010 just in time for the midterm elections. Meanwhile, Americans are still suffering now. The idea of the plan was good, but the implementation has been horrible. Not well planned, and not well executed.

I voted for the President, but will not do so again. His execution of this plan as our chief executive has left much to be desired. While the Democrats in Congress and the President will claim victory for this when it takes full effect, the people will have needlessly suffered from the political greed that they thought they rejected last November.

To the Rebublicans say what you want but whether its working or not you already failed because you and your contieuents didnt offer any solutions. So dont complain now. By the way you may fool some people but i know that its working yes people are out of work the employement rate is high but that was expected. So i Thank GOD for this President because a lot have been done since he took office. You might not see it for being in denial but i know things will get better by and by.

Your doing a great job President Obama!

It was no less than little Mikey Steele the head of the RNC that stated "bi-partisanship is over-rated".

Ignore the "pure" party of redneck "christians", and show them that we Dems now agree!

The Party of No only gets so many chances before the majority gets to completely ignore the temper tantrums with no substance!

I know several people who have a job today because of the stimulus bill. Since my job is as a contractor with the US Army Corps of Engineers I can imagine that many people nationwide also have jobs because of the stimulus bill. It is working, people.

It's absurd to think that a stimulus bill would have backloaded spending. Do nothing at all and the economy is likely to turn around in two years, without getting the country in further debt. With all these billions, they should set up the money for any business that wants to add an employee or two but can't due to the economy and fund that position for two years. It could be keeping on a waitress at a restaurant, it could be for keeping an additional worker on at some place other than GM, it could be for hiring some new sales help to drum up new business. Give it to small businesses and make them prove they've added the job. Spend that money and spend it now. It also raises tax revenues from all the additional employed. Using $500B in stimulus to pay an average salary of $50K for two years adds 5 million jobs.

The intent of the Stimulus according to Pres. Obama and crew was that it would keept unemployment under 8% if it was enacted quickly. It hasn't done what they promised it would do. It wasn't a stimulus to the economy, it was a payoff to Dem interests. Could you try looking past the White House spin and check the facts and what was promised? Nah, I guess not. Live in the bubble.

[...] No Wonder It Hasn't Worked Obama defends $787 stimulus bill [...]

This 'so-called' president lies with every breath he takes and the government run news media such as msnbc, cnn, abc backs those lies with every breath they take.

Obfuscation no longer works for the majority of Americans Mr. Obama. Walk the talk or resist the really big show!

I do not care which party you support, ask yourself if you could run your own household the way the government is running the country?
For all you folks who keep saying the free market is the problem, the problem did not start until W. started acting like a commie too.

Obama is a failure. 16% unemployment right now. It has gone up 7% since he took office and burdened us with his "stimulus". The White House likes to play games with the numbers. They say it is only 9.5% (more than the 8% they said was the max) but they do not include all the people after 6 months who no longer recieve unemployment. That makes unemployment 16% not 9.5%.

Obama is a FAILURE. Wake up America.

I support you President Obama, i'm not a fair weather voter.......I do believe you have good ideas, that will help, & change America in the long term.

If members of congress had actually read this load of hogwash they never would have voted for it..until these 435 clowns are held accountable for their actions garbage like this spending spree are going to continue to happen

"The nearly $800 billion bill “wasn’t designed to restore the economy to full health on its own, but to provide the boost necessary to stop the free fall." "We must let it work the way it’s supposed to, with the understanding that in any recession, unemployment tends to recover more slowly than other measures of economic activity.” *****If you Mr. President were one of the laid off workers you my have a little greater urgency in you approach to this problem. Kinda like the urgency you had when you were pressing to pass this Spending package. This spending is only delaying the inevitable because it continues to increase our indebtedness to the corrupt private bankers of the Federal Reserve. 3000 jobs in claifornia and 2600 jobs in Michigan is nothing compared to the job losses." It ain't working Mr. President and it won't until manufacturing jobs come back home.

With in the last 2 months, I've also saw them rip up handicap side walks to fix them to Government standards. The same side walks the Government put in the previous year, since there are so many handicap citizens in a town of less then 2000. The new sidewalks are not even level, and when it rains, water sits there for days before it drys up. They also look stupid as all heck, with curbs where there should not be curbs. They lower to street level 2 sections before the corner and are flat at the intersection with a small brown mat-like square for traction in the middle. Too bad I can't post a picture of how bad they look. The really sad part is, they only did 4 intersections one 1 street and left the rest of the towns side walks alone, even skipping some intersections on the same street. This was not needed at all and was more Government waste at work. I guess the only good thing is that least they look NEW.

I Got a Job – ha ha ha ha ha

Obummer,
You can defend this PORKULUS BILL when you don't raise any taxes or hidden fees. Until then, you are full of it.

Time for Obummer to GO.

Oh, yes... And the Republicans are one to criticize the President on his policies... yeah... right. Mr. President, there is no need to defend your policies. Bush and the Republicans screwed us for almost a decade and had no respect for the opinions of the American people. The majority of us know that you are at least trying to fix the problem (a problem no President has seen since the Great Depression). They feel that all they have to do is criticize you and your stimulus bill and continue to offer us their same failed policies as their alternative, and somehow we're dumb enough to believe they have the right answers. We Americans aren't that stupid. Time is on your side. We have faith that the economy will recover and are not expecting miracles this year. Like you said on election night, not everyone who voted for you will be happy with EVERYTHING you do, but you will ultimately still have our support for the next 8 years!

So did the package cost $787 or $787 billion?

What we ought to do is file ethics complaints against all the dems especially Polosi

ECONOMIC INSANITY!!! Government does not create steady, long-term jobs–only the private sector does that. All we are doing by passing these so-called stimulus bills is putting our debt-strapped country deeper and deeper in debt for an insignificant number of short-term construction jobs. When the money dries up, the jobs go away and we are in worse shape than when we started. Governments do not create wealth!

Check you headline!
I really WISH Obama was defending a $787 stimulus bill.
Your copy editors forgot a few zeros.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/

Excuse me Mr. Cantor, but I'm an American and I'm not questioning the plan, but I am questioning.....you. Where is your plan? Where were you when the previous administration was digging this hole in the first place. Man, you're not even a good Monday morning quarterback. You have done nothing to help Americans but yet you're doing everything to help your party. Your whole party seems to practice "Republican Economic Terroism" 101. Do nothing and hope all fails so the people will come running to the party once again. Man y'all think Americans are really that stupid.

Keep moving those goal posts.

1) Rushing through the stimulus package without anyone reading it will cap unemployment under 9%. WRONG!

2) Save or create hundreds of thousands of jobs with "shovel ready" projects. WRONG!

The economy will improve on its own, and Obama will take full credit and say it was the stimulus!

Doing nothing could not have made things any worse, and this stimulus did NOTHING to save the banking or financial sector. That was the Wall St. bailout, Mr. President. Quit the deceptions.

Yeah... because tax breaks for the wealthy and Big Oil will definately help us out of this depression!! Way to go, Republicans!!

Republicans have dismantled our economy over the past decade... and now it's supposed to be fixed by Obama who's been on the job for six months?

Right... we've seen the effects of Republican policies... that's why our country's economy is in the dumps in the first place!! How convenient of Republicans to forget that little fact so soon after losing power!!

What does Obama intend to do about the hign rate of job loss? Touring the world countries won't do it. If the stimulus was intended to work in later years, he's done nothing to create jobs or to curb job loss, Yes, he claims to have saved jobs, anyone can say that because it's not provable. During his campaign for president, he said he was going to create 2 million jobs. Well, he's about 14 million in the hole now, As I see it, he has failed.

I wonder if he really believes what his teleromptor is telling him.

how can our president go on defending something that is a huge failure? He is such a radical leftist. His socialist way of thinking will never work. He is nothing more than a radical abostionsit, manchurian candidate! Where is the birth certificate???

“[A]s I made clear at the time it was passed, the Recovery Act was not designed to work in four months – it was designed to work over two years."

Yes, the Recovery plan is designed to show results when I have to start campaigning for the second term. How can I "allow a crisis to go to waste"?

I hoped they kept him in Ghana. But those people are not that stupid.

I think they are losing their minds in Washington. Another stimulus bill? More debt. Obscene. Obscene. Obscene.

When do you think China will come to collect their IOU's ..... asking for Government land in the District of Columbia as payment?

What do you expect him to do?? Be honest and admit he doesn't have a clue what he is doing!! Face it folks, he was a college educated community organizer, he has ZERO background experience running a business or even working for one. How is he supposed to understand business and common folk issues?

Yeah, it's creating jobs all right. Government jobs. Who do you think pays for all those guys standing by the side of the road as 1 or 2 works? There is construction where I live. I watched as it took them 8 months to redo a small bridge over a tiny creek at a railroad crossing. 8 months when it should have taken less then 1. They even had a trailer at this location and a person sat in it every work day...for 8 months while nothing was being done, because he "had" to be on-site.

There's other construction along one of our main highways here in PA. Of course, we are forced down to 1 lane, yet no construction vehicles are to be seen, anywhere. They even removed all the barriers and opened it up July 4th weekend to use, then closed it back down afterwards. This project has been going on for weeks now too. So, who is paying for all these new jobs that no one is doing?

I'm betting a lot of this is going on across the country too. Who else see's these non-working contruction jobs?

More Government waste and I'm getting sick of it.

there's your answer ignorant repugnant reptiles.....the beener and idiotic cantor should get their facts before showing their lack of knowledge

Like people have been saying in these blogs anyone with half a brain understands that measures to fix a bady collapsed economy will not express themselves overnight.

You Republicans are yelling the loudest, and it's their administration that got us in this mess to begin with.

Everytime you criticize a very hard-working administration you give us another reason not to vote for you.

It's easy to figure out. The Republicans got us in this mess. Imagine where we'd be if McCain won the election.

I'm grateful that our administration

If you don't see improvement in your state, ASK YOUR STATE REPRESENTAIVES WHY.

President Obama authorized the money – what is YOUR STATE doing with the money?

Quit whining on blogs- start holding YOUR politicians accountable.

Where are the jobs?

While the Republican Party criticizes President Obama, America can thank President Bush and his administration for getting us into this mess, paying contractors and Iraqis millions of dollars taken away by the wheelbarrel loads with no accountability and letting our economy go to Hell in a HandBasket yet tell America that the economy was in great shape. Where are all the Repubicans when it comes to criticizing their fellow Republicans and holding hearings for crimes against their President and his Administration for defrauding all of us!!!!!!

Like I said he says what you want to hear and keeps changing his tune. It is so obvious his inexperience is showing through. But he likes spending other people's money. How long will this go before you people that keep defending him, realize he is running our country into serious debt???? Do you handle your personal checking and savings accounts like this??? If so, then that explains why you don't give a toot about this country and its people. Stop the Silver tongue talk and start working for the people whom you were elected to serve!

He lied. Instead of putting us through a continuing national nightmare he needs to resign.

Obama lied. He lied about the stimulus. His so called health care reform is based on several enormous lies. His defense of the attempted Marxist coup against the Honduran government is based on a series of lies put out by Chavez and other supporters of Obama.

As the old saying goes "You can fool some of the people some of the time, and all of the people some of the time (Obamots), but you can't fool all of the people all of the time". Obama's time to effect "change" has passed. He is what many of us figured, a Chicago thug and a Marxist opportunist.

If I ran my houshold or my business like this administration is running our country, Id be robbed daily by my poor neighbors and have gone bankrupt for spending more than I make. Wize up America you can't get something for nothing. Look to california if you need a glaring example of Democrat liberal policies run amok.