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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Waaah! Waaah! Fix it NOW Obama!! We want you to fail, but before you do FIX THE ECONOMY NOW!!! I want my Starbucks back! Waaah!
WHERE is the picture of Biden with the words "Wrong Again" placed on it?
Of course there's a growing consensus that stiumulus is working...when you have 9 in 10 Americans believing that we're still in a recession, how can a consensus do anything but grow? It's NOT working.
The government is throwing money at the public sector which historically has worked well (FDR's money into projects such as the Hoover dam was a great success).
However, as an engineer, I have observed that the type of projects that are winning work are ones that have to be "shovel ready." So, instead of new highways or widenings to improve our existing infrastructure that would employ a large number of trades and provide long-term stimulus in both residential and commercial markets, the money is being thrown at 1-month long pavement preservation contracts.
When's the last time that you heard, "Honey, let's move here. I understand that they recently sealed some asphalt cracks and have not improved traffic accessibility or created corridors for growth."
Idiots!
Biden would stick up for it no matter what. There is a continous stream of layoffs. Ask those people what they think.
Funny someone mentioned "Hoovervilles". I guess they forgot to read that Hoover spent millions on infrastructure and created more gov't "jobs" than ever before right before the depression set in. Hey, isn't that what the so-called "stimulus" is?
If they really wanted to "stimulate" the economy, that $787,000,000,000 of our money would've been doled back out to the people who earned it. But since their true goal was to create more dependants on the gov't, they didn't do that.
Wake up and smell the coffee people. Be them Dem or GOP, your gov't only cares that you are dependant on them....otherwise they'd have no job.....
And the said that Bush lied? Sheesh, these people seem never to be able to tell the truth at all.
This would be funny if he was not Vice President of the United States.
Most of these ubanite posting don"t have the slightest ideal to look over a vast green farm and say we going to have a bumper crop this year. With the stiumulus money just beginning to come on line we will have a bumper crop of new job very soon I betcha.
Yeah, Joe- Bush/Cheney left you two failed wars and the worst economic collapse since the great depression. You've had 7 months to fix it, what's the problem?
How can this be? I understand only 10-15% was spent. Be careful of those jobless recoveries! I know, blah blah..lagging indicator..blah blah. Tell that to those who are unemployed! I guess the government can now return the 85-90% back to us. YEAH!!!
Maybe he need to talk to the real folks who are still living with recession, lost jobs, potential loss of health care. Get out and talk to the real people in America, it won't hurt you to leave the east coast and see how middle America feels and lives.
Just think of the great band the Dobbie Brothers.......What a FOOL believes
Stimulus is working better than nothing at all. Bush issued a stimulus package before he left and did any right-wing conservs. complain? The game hasn't changed only the new face in the oval office and that is why the Republicans hate everything this administration propose. Our country is screwed up in so many ways because of the Republican Party. Corp. America out source bread & butter jobs from middle America to southeast Asia and Mexico. $erious economic crisis for many decades to come but Republican politicians are already planning the next Presidential election and not working to pass bills thru non partisanship during the legislative process. This is in their job description.
Evil repuglicans will say any lie to discredited the progress made...Obama said unemployment will be one of the last issues to get better...it makes sense if your not a repug moron. Go listen to your hate monger Glen Beck. I'm sure he has the answers (he'll draw you a chart to help!!).
He said the "Stimulus Plan" is working. He did not say that the economy was in tip-top shape because of it. No matter what the Obama administration does or say it is not good enough for some people. The GOP continue to complain and critique everything that they do without giving any meaningful solutions of their own. Can you imagine what state the economy would be in if no one had bothered to act and act with urgency. I applaude the Obama & Bush administration along with congress and the fed for their quick action when the economy was falling apart.
If you are not part of the solution, please stop the childish nonsense.
If the market is up, the stimulus is working. If the market is down, blame Bush. All credit, no blame. That is what I make of all of the vice presidents comments.
Really !! is anyone out there really stupid enough to buy this load of crap !!
Republicans better not take credit for JACK because if it were left up to them we'd all be in soup lines just like Ohio was under the Bush administration and I will never forget.
The GOP is screaming "Socialist Indoctrination" because President Obama is going to give a speech to all the kids going back to school that will stress the importance of the importance of an education. So, if that constitues socialist indoctrination, my mother was the Queen Socialist of all and I didn't even realize it until now. Man, those socialists are slick. It's amazing the double lives people can lead, you know?
"We won't recover till we return to the pre-democrat (pre 1/1/2007) prosperity of the Bush years."
Does everyone see the pathetic level of delusion that is required to live in a rightwing fantasy world? The [R] Bush administration gives us a record TWO recessions during its 8 year reign of terror, and these people want to label that a time of "prosperity"?!! I have been around for a good long time now, and am solidly middle class, and I can state without any reservation that the Bush years were the ABSOLUTE worst years for me and my family economically. And the delusional [R]s want to blame it all on Clinton and Obama? Even if these neo-tards miraculously got back into power, there is absolutely NO sign that they learned ANYTHING from their mistakes....and that they would soon drive this country into oblivion again. What kind of backwards,misguided, uber-partisan numnut would actually vote for that?
Let's face it, most Americans today have an attention span just long enough to send a 140-character tweet. We're so used to everything we think we need being available "on demand" that we're incapable of long-term critical thinking and looking at the big picture. THAT'S what will cause our eventual demise as a society, if we haven't reached it already.
Ah for the days of Agnew and Quayle; mental giants compared to Joe. Sarah's looking more like a VP with each passing day as well compared to "Joe, where am I Biden". Can't want for 2010 and 2012 when America is returned to the people.
Biden you are an idiot. The only reason you're where you're at is because you rode the shoulders of the latest American traitor.
"We won't recover till we return to the pre-democrat (pre 1/1/2007) prosperity of the Bush years."
Right, because holographic prosperity based on an untenably inflated housing bubble, malfeasance by financial institutions and tax cuts for the rich, all of which is poised to cause a giant economic collapse...well, that's better than responsible prosperity, isn't it?
No President in American history inherited a worse situation than Obama. He is doing all he can after 8 years of Republican destruction.