Biden credits stimulus plan with sparking economic recovery
[cnn-photo-caption image= http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/images/09/03/art.biden.0903.gi.jpg
caption="Vice President Joe Biden trumpeted the role of the stimulus package in sparking an economic recovery."]
WASHINGTON (CNN) - Vice President Joe Biden trumpeted the role of the administration's $787 billion stimulus package Thursday in sparking an economic recovery.
"There is a growing consensus: the recovery act is working," he told an audience at the Brookings Institute.
"Instead of talking about the beginning of a depression, we are talking about the end of a recession."
The stimulus plan, enacted almost 200 days ago, "is doing more faster and more efficiently and more effectively than most people expected," he argued.
The vice president, who is overseeing the implementation of the plan, cited multiple independent analysts who claim the stimulus plan has created or saved between 500,000 and 750,000 jobs.
Economists from Goldman Sachs, he noted, believe the recovery plan added over 2 percentage points in growth to the country's gross domestic product in the second quarter of 2009.
They believe it will add 3.3 points in the third quarter, he added.
The Republican National Committee sharply disputed Biden's claims, releasing a statement characterizing the stimulus plan as a failure.
"The Democrats' rhetoric on their economic experiment doesn't match with the reality of millions of Americans remaining unemployed," the statement said. "The stimulus was an economic experiment that failed."
Most Americans remain pessimistic about the state of the economy. Nearly nine in 10 believe the country is still in a recession, according to an August 28-31 CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll.
Almost 40 percent of Americans believe the Obama administration's policies have improved economic conditions. Thirty-four percent believe Obama's policies have worsened the economic climate, while 27 percent believe they have had no effect.
Altogether, employers have announced over 1,070,000 job cuts so far this year - 60 percent more than at this point a year ago. The current tally is less than 200,000 away from surpassing the total number of job cuts in all of 2008.
The Labor Department's monthly jobs report, due Friday, is expected to show that the economy shed 265,000 jobs in August, slightly more than the 247,000 reported for July, according to a consensus estimate of economists compiled by the Web site Briefing.com.
The unemployment rate is predicted to rise from 9.4 to 9.5 percent.
–CNN's Jessica Dickler contributed to this report
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Get real, Joe. The porkulus package did NOTHING. And if this is a recovery, I'm really worried about the future. We won't recover till we return to the pre-democrat (pre 1/1/2007) prosperity of the Bush years.
Republicans like Jindal and Bohner have been going on tours of their states claiming credit for all the new jobs created by the Recovery Act – but then they turn around on TV and say "not a single job has been created."
I think I smell a lie.
Go get 'em Joe!
Yes, as was stated in The Wall Street Journal, the other day, the stimulus package did improve the economy. Not as much as many of us would like, except those wackos like Rush Limboob, who said they want the country to fail.
It will work even better if these republican governors stop sitting on the money.
Sorry, I don't want to comment on useless people and use les articles.But I can't stop laughing at this guy. Good for america that we have soem funny guys at the top...
And the long-term effect?
How about the fact that our country's economic fate is in the hands of the Chinese? Or that our children and grandchildren will be paying for the inability of our Congress to not spend more than it brings in?
Didn't Obama promise millions of jobs this summer? Didn't he promise to get us out of Iraq and Afghanistan? Does anyone else out there realize that we have more people deployed RIGHT NOW than at anytime during the Bush years?
Give me something to believe in without the smoke and mirrors. How about some straight talk?
What fariy tale is Biden living in. Only about 12 to 15 percent of the $787 billion has been spent yet. If that little amount has turned our whole economy around, that is some powerful juice. But if it is that efficient and effective, how come it did not keep unemployment below 8%? It is currently 9.4 and predicted to rise to 9.5 and higher. If the economy is in recovery, there should be no need to spend much of the remaing 85% of the $787 billion stimulus. Use the unspent amount to retire a big chunk of this years $1.6 trillion deficit.
The unemployment rate is predicted to rise from 9.4 to 9.5 percent.
____________________________________________________
Yeah, time for a victory lap. Let the good times roll!
ahhhh... what planet is joe on?
It has been reported that the global recession is abating. Japan and Germany, I believe, are two prominent countries which are now seeing the light.
This bit of news is irritating to Republicans and their followers who would get a natural high from seeing a sensible administration fail but hey, don't worry, something else will crop up for you to complain about! In the meantime, if you have a job be grateful and if you manage to keep it don't forget why that might be possible!
There is more confidence in the economy – the husband of a friend of mine was laid off mid-April and found a job by mid-August. He was willing to take a slight pay cut and double his commute, but it's worth it to keep his family afloat (his wife also started working part-time while he was off work to help make ends meet).
If our country can pull itself out of the Great Depression and go on to fight and win World War II, I'm confident we'll make it through these challenging times, too. Pull together, do everything you can, keep your chin up and DO IT!
Enter GOPers, stage right, yammering incessently about socialism and the economy magically fixing itself without help of the Stimulus Plan or anything else the gov't is doing.
Please post a story with some bad economic news in it sometime today CNN, so we can read the GOPers hypocritically claim that the magic market that fixes itself without anybody's help is somehow also declining all because of Obama's ineffective Stimulus Plan.
Liars can figure and figures can lie. Prove that it saved jobs. Also, only 10% of the stimululs has been spent. There is not enough benefit in that 10% to effect the economy that quickly. The economy is a very big engine that doesn't start and stop on a dime. Obama wanted to bad mouth Bush for the TARP but the argument could be made that stabitily came about because TARP worked in stabilizing the financial markets. For 2 reasons: Time Factor: the TARP has been in the system for almost a year, Second: the stability of the financial market is the first critical factor needed to effect a recovery. Look at history: the 89's and early 90's and the early 70's. If there isn't confidence in the financial industry, how do you have a recovery?
The stimulous plan, public healthcare option and many of the president's other policies will pay off nicely in the long run. But most Americans can't think that far ahead. Too bad. Wait until the aging baby boom makes your healthcare and insurance costs double and medicare goes broke. I'm sure that those who are screaming socialism now will be screaming even louder. Have a nice day!
yeah, the one started by Bush and Henry Paulson.....that one !!! very good insight Joe.
That is of course according to Joe Biden.
The statistics show that the vast majority of economists agree that it is actually a combination of the Obama AND Bush efforts that date back to October of last year, well before Obama did ANYTHING that are to be credited.
So Joe can toot his own horn all he wants (he always does) but it is not by the efforts of the current administration alone that things are looking up. Don't forget, this thing isn't over just yet. Old Joe might be tooting his horn a little early.
$787 billion to SAVE or create 500,000 to 750,00 jobs is not a sign of recovery.
Well folks, here it comes......the fake recovery!!!!! This is all pre-planned to enrich the international bankers once again when they drop the bottom out after a staged "recovery".
Biden doesn't know diddly.
The Stimulus Bill was so full of PORK it was insane.
Prove this 500000 jobs program.
We should not call the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act a "stimulus" plan. To do so suggests that it had no purpose other than to give a short term jolt to the economy.
The Act makes strategic investments that will pay off for years to come, even if those investments take a few more months to set up than some scattershot tax cut or other unfocused move designed to do nothing more than boost consumer spending.
Remember the "rebate"? That was a stimulus plan but all it did was to encourage more people to buy goods made in China. Its impact on the U.S. economy was utterly negligible.
People do not understand what "recession" means. No matter how often it is described, people believe it to be high unemplyment, rather than several quarters of reduced GDP. Oh well. I guess if they don't even know what "Socialism" means, a term we learned all about in high school, can't expect them to understand such a technical term as recession. One more reason to despair our education system as well as our media.
THIS: what Americans say: Country still in recession...!!!!
That: is what Biden is saying: "The plan is sparking economic Recovery"
THIS AND THAT OR WHAT...Are the people wrong who are living the
hard times...oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooor the
Politicians living in the IVORY TOWER...?????????????????????????
Oh yeah? Tell that to the people whose unemployment benefits have run out!!!
They told us that if we pass the stimulus, unemployment would not go above 8%!!!
"The Labor Department's monthly jobs report, due Friday, is expected to show that the economy shed 265,000 jobs in August, slightly more than the 247,000 reported for July, according to a consensus estimate of economists compiled by the Web site Briefing.com.
The unemployment rate is predicted to rise from 9.4 to 9.5 percent."
They think if they say something contrary to reality, that it will be true!!
Nothing but a bunch of thugs and liars!!!
The GOP, we reckon, will love to pounce on Biden, and the attack will be spearheaded by a person none other than Boehner. Of course, we all know the cacophonous chorus of the resistant repubs. who have the uncanny ability to almost unanimously chime the bells of obstruction and nay-saying. Vultures aren't any different from them.