President Obama Forgets he said that his $800 billion stimulus boondoggle would “save or create 3.5 million jobs”[i] and keep unemployment below 8%.[ii] But AFP activists want to remind President Obama that the unemployment rate has never been below 8% during his Presidency and the country has lost 1.7 million jobs on his watch.[iii]

President Obama pushed hard in early 2009 for passage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), better known as the stimulus, purportedly to create jobs and help the economy. President Obama’s economic team, led by Christina Romer and Jared Bernstein, released a report in January of 2009 to estimate the economic benefits of passing the stimulus. According to the report with the passage of the President’s stimulus plan, would peak just below 8% in mid-2009 and fall to 6% by the first quarter of 2012. Congress passed the stimulus but the President’s government spending didn’t work. The unemployment rate reached 10% in 2009, was greater than 9% for the entirely of 2010 and only fell below 9% in the last several months of 2011. If the President truly wants to lower unemployment he will pursue the policies AFP advocated all along: lower taxes, less regulation and cuts to government spending.

President Obama made a second claim to Americans while pushing for his massive government stimulus bill in early 2009; he asserted that the stimulus would “create or save three and a half million jobs over the next two years.”[iv] It is nearly impossible to determine whether a job is “created or saved,” but by any measure the President’s plan failed to follow through. Job growth three years later is still anemic. During the Obama Presidency, America lost 1.7 million jobs with more than 1.1 million of the losses coming from the private sector.[v] The President continues to push his agenda with failed tactics to develop the much-needed jobs recovery American needs.