Obama Says Economic Stimulus Worked as Intended, Urges Patience
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By Edwin Chen
July 11 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama said his $787 billion stimulus bill “has worked as intended” as he pushed back against Republican criticism that his recovery program has failed to rescue the economy.
“It has already extended unemployment insurance and health insurance to those who have lost their jobs in this recession,” Obama, who is traveling today in Ghana, said in his weekly Saturday radio and Web address. “It has delivered $43 billion in tax relief to American working families and business.”
Were it not for the stimulus program, the president said, “state deficits would be nearly twice as large as they are now, resulting in tens of thousands of additional layoffs -- layoffs that would affect police officers, teachers, and firefighters.”
In the weekly Republican response, House Minority Whip Eric Cantor of Virginia said the stimulus bill was “full of pork- barrel spending, government waste and massive borrowing cleverly called ‘stimulus.’”
“The plain truth is that President Obama’s economic decisions have not produced jobs, have not produced prosperity, and have not worked,” Cantor said.
He said the Republicans want reductions in tax rates that he said would help middle-class families.
In asking for public patience, Obama said the recovery act “wasn’t designed to restore the economy to full health on its own, but to provide the boost necessary to stop the free fall.”
Spur Demand
Enacted in February, the bill “was designed to spur demand and get people spending again and cushion those who had borne the brunt of the crisis,” the president said.
Obama said the measure “was not designed to work in four months -- it was designed to work over two years.”
The spending plan will “accelerate greatly” through the summer and autumn, launching “thousands more infrastructure projects” that will lead to additional jobs, he said.
“We’re moving in the right direction,” Obama said. “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.”
In a Bloomberg interview last month, the president said he expected unemployment rates to exceed 10 percent.
In his radio address, Obama also renewed his commitment to comprehensive health-care legislation that expands insurance coverage while cutting costs. He also vowed to address long-term entitlement reform.
Earlier this week, Vice President Joe Biden also defended the Obama administration’s efforts to rebuild America’s economy, while expressing frustration with those who say progress is too slow.
“Remember, we’re only 140 days into this deal,” Biden said in a speech in Cincinnati. “It’s supposed to take 18 months.”
