That would be what most of us know as “the stimulus.” Republican leaders claim it hasn’t created a single job (while hastening to take credit for the jobs it’s provided at ribbon-cutting ceremonies across the nation).
Well, guess what, two-faced Republican leadership? The CBO reports today that the stimulus bill “in the fourth quarter of calendar year 2009, ARRA added between 1.0 million and 2.1 million to the number of workers employed in the United States, and it increased the number of full-time-equivalent (FTE) jobs by between 1.4 million and 3.0 million.”
And no, hypocritical GOP leadership: You cannot take credit for a single one of those jobs.
Prof. Darren Hutchinson has a question:
If the stimulus had substantial success later in 2009 — yet unemployment remains high — does this validate Paul Krugman’s argument that the stimulus should have been larger and that it should have included more items of direct spending and fewer tax cuts?
PAST CONTRIBUTOR.