Right-Wing Recovery Myths

The Obama administration has been making an aggressive push to explain
the realities of the $787 billion stimulus package, in the face of
aggressive Republican misinformation. Vice President Biden, for example,
traveled to Ohio yesterday, forcefully backing the recovery bill and
asking for patience from the American public. "Remember, we're only 140
days into this deal. It's supposed to take 18 months," he said. Only $60
billion of $175 billion allocated to federal agencies so far has been
paid out. Earlier this week, President Obama took time out of his trip
to Moscow to discuss the recovery. "There's nothing that we would have
done differently," he told ABC News. "We needed a stimulus and we needed
a substantial stimulus." Republicans, who overwhelmingly voted against
the recovery act in Congress and have offered no new ideas, are now
trying to sow public dissatisfaction. In fact, the "plans" that
Republicans have been offering are largely the same ones that put the
country into the current economic mess. To create confusion, the GOP has
had to resort to sloppy attacks and inaccurate myths. A look at some of
what the right wing is spinning:

MYTH #1 -- ELECTORAL CONSIDERATIONS ARE DRIVING THE DISBURSEMENT OF
FUNDS: This myth popped up most prominently in a USA Today story
yesterday, with the headline, "Billions in aid go to areas that backed
Obama in '08." According to this USA Today analysis, "Counties that
supported Obama last year have reaped twice as much money per person
from the administration's $787 billion economic stimulus package as
those that voted for his Republican rival, Sen. John McCain." Naturally,
the right wing immediately picked up this report as evidence of
malevolent political manipulation by the Obama administration. Fox News
host Stuart Varney devoted an entire segment to it, and Sean Hannity
blasted it out to his nearly 30,000 Twitter followers. If they had read
the whole story, however, the likes of Varney and Hannity would have
discovered that there was nothing there. In fact, in the second
paragraph of the piece, reporter Brad Heath wrote, "Much of it [the
stimulus funds] has followed a well-worn path to places that regularly
collect a bigger share of federal grants and contracts, guided by
formulas that have been in place for decades and leave little room for
manipulation." These formulas are largely based on where the need is
greatest. Adam Hughes of the non-profit OMB Watch said that "it would be
almost inconceivable for [the spending imbalance] to be the result of
political tinkering."

MYTH #2 -- NO NEW JOBS HAVE BEEN CREATED: "How can we sit here and claim
success when people are hurting out there?" House Minority Whip Eric
Cantor compassionately complained on MSNBC last month. "We already know,
as of now, at the rate that we lost jobs last month, over eight people a
minute in America are losing their jobs. That's eight families without a
paycheck." Similarly, in a New York Daily News op-ed he wrote, "To put
it generously, the $787 billion bill has not been the 'temporary,
targeted and timely' job-creating machine the public was sold." House
Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) has called the recovery package
nothing short of "generational theft," and declared, "When it comes to
slow-moving government spending programs, it's clear that it doesn't
create the jobs." These claims are false. In fact, the recovery act is
creating jobs right in their districts. And it's important to remember
that the purpose of the legislation was also to save American jobs. Even
Boehner has had to admit these facts. In a little-noticed press release,
the Minority Leader highlighted the Obama administration's recent order
that the Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT) redirect $57 million
to shovel-ready projects. He said that he was "pleased" that the funds
would "create much-needed jobs." A few weeks later, when Boehner was
back to lashing out at the stimulus, the ODOT actually came out and
criticized him. ODOT's spokesman called Boehner's inaccurate statements
"disappointing" and pointed out that the agency had just approved "six
more stimulus road projects, which will cost about $43 million."
Cantor's hypocrisy has also been highlighted by the media, who have
noted that he is a backer of using stimulus funds to bring high-speed
rail to Virginia because it would create...jobs.

MYTH #3 -- THE RECOVERY IS A TOTAL FAILU The Republican National
Committee released a new web ad yesterday, declaring the stimulus a
"failure." But leading economists agree that it's too early to make any
such determinations. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office
estimated that "about a quarter of the money would be spent by year's
end, and that about 75 percent would flow by the end of 2010." In other
words, as Center for American Progress Senior Economist Heather Boushey
has explained, "the largest job gains from [stimulus] spending were
projected to occur in the late fall through 2010." So far, the spending
appears to be on track. The health care and education sectors, both of
which received stimulus money, have shown net job gains since the
recession began. Furthermore, Obama noted that infrastructure projects
were always going to take "six months to eight months to get that money
actually into the ground because that's the nature of big infrastructure
projects."


Cribbed from The Progress Report
for SW Tom, One of the Six Percenters