Perry says stimulus didn’t create jobs; CBO says it did
SEP 12, 2011 21:57 EDT
blogs.reuters.com
Texas Governor Rick Perry, front-runner in the race for the Republican presidential nomination, said on Monday President Barack Obama’s economic stimulus program created “zero” jobs.
Not so, according to the Congressional Budget Office, the non-partisan budget arbiter for lawmakers.
Congress in 2009 passed the $830 billion economic stimulus, known as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which included both spending measures and tax cuts.
According to the CBO:
As of June, between 1 million and 2.9 million Americans owed their jobs to the recovery act.
In the second quarter of 2011 the recovery act added or preserved 550,000 full-time jobs.
The recovery act brought down the unemployment rate by between 0.5 and 1.6 percentage points in the second quarter of 2011.
The Texas governor, who has touted his jobs creation record, gave his assessment of the U.S. economic stimulus program during Monday’s CNN/Tea Party sponsored Republican candidates debate in Tampa, Florida.
Perry shared the stage with former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann, Texas Rep. Ron Paul, business executive Herman Cain, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, former Utah governor Jon Huntsman and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.
Photo Credit: REUTERS/Scott Audette (Perry at Republican debate in Tampa) |
