Biden To Highlight Stimulus Spending — In Boehner’s Back Yard
Joe Biden to John Boehner: That stimulus spending you’re looking for is right under your nose, dude.
Biden’s office has announced that he’s traveling to Cincinnati tomorrow to highlight stimulus spending. But here’s what it doesn’t say in the Veep’s press release: It turns out Biden’s stimulus event is taking place right next door to the district of Boehner, who has proclaimed that the stimulus has flopped in his state.
That doesn’t appear to be a coincidence.
Boehner has been one of the leading critics of the stimulus package, most recently claiming that no stimulus contracts had been let in his home state of Ohio, though some stim cash seems to have landed right in Boehner’s district.
Biden is going tomorrow to Cincinnati, right next door to Boehner’s district, to hold an event at a formerly abandoned factory that’s being developed with stimulus money, where he’ll highlight other recovery act cash being spent in the state.
A GOP aide scoffed at Biden’s visit. “It’ll be interesting to see how the Vice President defends the Administration’s trillion-dollar `stimulus’ that was supposed to create jobs `immediately’ in a state that now has over 10 percent unemployment,” he said.
Of course, Ohio also happens to be a state where Obama’s numbers have dropped, and with the administration increasingly vulnerable to the GOP’s attacks on the stimulus’ failure to create jobs, more trips like this are likely. Boehner’s claims about the stimulus, however, give this visit a fun political subplot.
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I find it interesting that right after Nouriel Roubini decides that Obama and Geithner got it right, there are actually more stories about the administration getting it wrong.
What happened to the “everybody needs to be patient,” idea?
Tena! Where have you been?
Only 50 billion dollars out of the 780 billion dollars have been spent. So calling it a failure is kind of a stretch.
@Mich – Since when did facts matter to a guy like Boehner? He didn’t know about the jobs already created in his own state. Not surprising for a leader of a party priding itself on willful ignorance.
If I were the DNC (hint hint) I would PWN Boehner for that stupid ad he put up with the blood hound and show a guy with a hard hat and a gps monitor. He would follow the directions on his gps as the speaker in the background talked about all of the stimulus money being spent in Ohio and then the guy walks on to a contruction ard or a highway construction project at the end, puts down the gps and gets to work. And the fade out would have be a street sign with the city where Boehner’s district is right beside the work site. And I would put it up on youtube as a reply to his video so everyone who saw his video would go to the DNC video. Again (hint hint) Oh and good on Joe Biden for laying the smackdown on him in his own backyard.
Tena: This is America…Land of For-Profit, and Home of the Impatient.
Mich: Republicans were calling it a failure before the first dollar was spent.
None of this matters…the Stimulus plan spends the biggest chunk of money in the second year, with a majority of spending used over the first 3 years. His numbers may dip now, as the Blame-Bush mentality naturally fades and the Economy doesn’t immediate recover. But in another year or two, after 2/3 of the money is out the door, that will be the time we see the long term effects start showing…just in time for reelection. At that point (hopefully) the economy will be on an upward swing, the infrastructure and health care improvements will start showing their long term benifits, and Obama will run on a platform of “Let’s keep this going!”
That’s the plan…we’ll see, I’d say early/mid-2011, if it’s going to fully play out that way (in Obama’s favor).
Hmmm, Boehner versus Biden. I don’t think I’d put my money on either one of them . . . Be patient? Try telling that to smeone who is unemployed. Look, they screwed up the unemployment projections; they were wrong. This money was supposed to fund “shovel-ready” construction jobs and even those jobs have not yet appeared. The money isn’t going out as fast as they said it would and there is already fraud and waste that they promised us they would zealously protect against. It is safe to say that the stimulus has thus far left much to be desired (even if it eventually “works”). Let’s not forget the billions we poured into GM only to see it go bankrupt anyway. Even Colin Powell’s geting a bit worried about the deficit spending. It’s okay to admit that things haven’t gone so well – that’s the first step . . .
sbj – You’re welcome to come to my street and sit in front of the street-closed sign and listen to the jackhammers transforming the curbs and boulevard on the semi-commercial street that runs a block and a half away. The noise represents stim dollars at work and people with jobs who were out of work before the stimulus bill passed.
@ABC: Where do you live? I’ll be right over to check that out!
But seriously, dude – 467,000 people lost their jobs in June. “Job losses were widespread across the major industry sectors, with large declines occurring in manufacturing, professional and business services, and construction.”
“And construction” – the one area we were told there would be quick creation of jobs because we would rapidly funnel money to shovel ready jobs.
The unemployment rate is 9.5 percent. There’s no evidence that the first stimulus has “worked” and now they’re sending out feelers about another package.
@sbj, I love hearing Republicans wanting other people to confess to things not going so well. Where were you from 2003-2009? I’m sure you were off telling fellow Republicans to “admit things haven’t gone so well” and to set a different course. The stimulus has been slower than any of us would like but your Republican complaints are falling on deaf ears.
@sbj, seriously dude, millions lost their jobs under George Bush. There’s no evidence your party cared about any of that then. Everything was perfect when Bush ruled the world. But now if only people would just admit things haven’t gone so well we could then begin our great transformation to real recovery.
@Chris: When you assume . . . well, you know the rest. I’m not a Republican. I didn’t approve of everything that Bush did.
You don’t have to confess to things not going so well but don’t try to tell me I’m eating filet mignon after serving me a **** sandwich!
There’s no right or wrong – the problem is the us vs. them mentality. It cripples the nation. The problem with the stimulus is the way it was “sold” – we were told it must be passed right away to avoid catastrope – yet, the benefits of the bill don’t really kick in for another year. We were told unemployment would skyrocket without it…. yet it skyrocketed anyway.
The stimulus bill is Obama’s Iraq-invasion. Right or wrong, it was sold in a dishonest manner.
– and as to the stimulus – with all this money being spent.. why can’t they cut the grass on the national mall?
@sbj, not a Republican stuff again? Whatever. I don’t recall ever saying anything about you eating a filet mignon, nor did I say anything about anything being perfect right now. Obama inherited the worst financial crisis since 1932. Add two major wars in with that and I would say he inherited the worst situation any elected president has ever inherited. It’s no filet mignon and I never said it was. It’s going to take a little more than 6 months to fix what
your Partythe GOP delivered to us all.@chris: Yes, I’m conservative – not a Republican, rarely vote Republican or Democratic. (There are a lot of liberals who rarely vote Democratic.) Every president inherits the worst something or other blah blah blah – okay? Gibbs told us all we could start judging the stimulus now so that’s what I am rightly doing. The buck has to stop somewhere. I’m hoping the stimulus spending “works” eventually but I don’t think the indicators are so hot right now. I feel like we were rushed into massive deficit spending which has not worked as advertised.
@sbj, judge it now by all means but don’t act like everything should be rosy by now. No one said it would be. And no president inherited the mess Obama has. Johnson after Lincoln had a plate full but he wasn’t elected. Truman had two huge wars raging but he wasn’t elected either. No elected president has inherited an economy on the verge of collapse while simultaneously facing two ongoing endless wars. You know it’s true, you just won’t admit it. Admitting it makes your “conservative” President Bush a failure. And we all know “conservatives” just can’t do that.
@sbj: It appears that you’ve probably never worked in the site development construction industry.
A “shovel ready” project would likely consist of a project that has been totally designed, and MAYBE gone through the approval process. However, even approved permits are basically useless since they can expire. Older projects that might have been designed and approved, but sat on the shelf for a few years would have to be reevaluated, resubmitted, and reapproved. This process takes at minimum a few months for any major construction, and many times (given updates in Codes and the sites themselves, depending on the timeframe) could take a several months before they get approval.
Then you have to send the plans out for bid. In the private world that takes a couple weeks, if not longer. For a Government bid – which has additional requirements – it generally takes longer, I can see the range from “little longer” to “months longer” depending on the project…but that’s due to laws that are in place to try and protect your tax dollars.
Sure, “shovel ready” is a good sales pitch (it worked)…but everyone I knew in the field assumed that things would pick up until late summer, early fall. The hope is they can get a lot of work done before Winter hits and everything in the North and NorthEast has to stop working.
And again, since it bares repeating, unemployment is a lagging indicator and the stimulus is a multi-year plan for a reason. If you honestly thought that the economy would be better by now…then you’d be well off to got grab a catscan.
Is it as fast as we’d like? No. But your arguements seem woefully uninformed.
PS – They were very wrong about the unemployment numbers…I couldn’t understand how they could have thought we wouldn’t break 8% at the time, and said so.
@chris: They didn’t tell me things would be rosy – but they did tell me that the unemployment rate would be lower than it it is, they did tell me that construction employment would be better than it is due to so-called shovel-ready jobs, they did tell me that they would control fraud and waste and they aren’t. Thanks, chris – I “judge” these areas to be failures. If Afghanistan is an “ongoing endless” war then you should blame Obama! (Bonus quiz points: Who said, “I love hearing [Democrats] wanting other people to confess to things not [having gone] so well?”)
@BBQ: “Sure, “shovel ready” is a good sales pitch (it worked)…”
That’s my point! We were sold a bill of goods.
@sbj, and then Obama admitted they were wrong about unemployment numbers. Admitting being wrong was something your fellow Republican Bush could never do. Construction is better than it was. There is a highway job in my hometown that wouldn’t be happening without the stimulus funds. And what fraud and waste are you referring to?
If you judge all that to be “failures” then certainly you agree the last 8 years of “conservative” rule on this country was a complete “failure” leading President Obama to inherit the worst situation any elected president has ever inherited. But you won’t cause that would mean your little world where Reagan shrunk government and created fiscal discipline would cease to exist.
And how in the world is Afghanistan Obama’s fault? In the planet I live on that was one of Bush’s two wars Obama inherited. Bush chose to focus on Iraq instead of finishing the job in Afghanistan, so sadly we are still there. Just another failure left for Obama to fix. You see things differently I see.
@sbj: Please. We were sold exactly what we bought – projects that will provide jobs, build infrastructure, and help get this economy moving again.
I’ll take those “goods” anyday. Just because you don’t know the process doesn’t mean it was a boondoggle. It means next time you should know what you’re talking about. “Shovel Ready” were/are still the fastest available projects – so making sure the money went to them rather than projects that hadn’t even been designed yet was the right decision.
They also admitted they were wrong about the unemployment numbers – something Republicans/Conservatives can’t ever seem to do until they get caught cheating on their wives.
You’re compaining about the speed of righting a multi-trillion dollar economy in 6 months. How utterly absurd.
@BBQ: Please!
I’m complaining that “Obama’s economic advisers demanded fast action, rather than reasoned debate and negotiation, to adopt their recommendations in order to avoid a spike in unemployment in the near term. They got what they wanted — a spending plan that funded just about every liberal fantasy of the last 30 years, save universal health care — and it didn’t do anything to stop rapid unemployment.”
http://hotair.com/archives/2009/07/08/stimulus-fizzle-has-democrats-worried/
I’m complaing that we were told that shovel-ready meant quick jobs in construction and we still see continued job losses in construction. (You yourself admit that this was a good sales pitch but now you seem to argue that we all knew it was just a lie anyway?) I’m complaining that we were told that unemployment would be better than it now is.
I’m complaining that we were told all of these lies so that we could spend billions of dollars to prop up Democratic constituencies and fund liberal pet projects.
I’m not complaining about the speed of the “economic recovery,” I’m complaining about the dishonest sales pitch Obama fed to us to get our congress to pass this mess.
@sbj, and once again, you go silent in regards to me. Whenever the “conservative” Fantasy World is presented with coherent reality, you just ignore it. I’ve already stated Obama admitted he was wrong about unemployment numbers. Yet you keep whining about it to BBQ. That one admission alone is one more than George Bush ever gave this country. Yet you demand everyone else admit more than the big bad conservative did.
I would think a staunch conservative like yourself would have no problems admitting 8 solid years of conservative rule in this country left us with the worst economic and military situations any incoming president has ever inherited. But you can’t. Instead you would rather talk about how people need to admit to things and move on. Except for things like how the last 8 years were a complete disaster for our country. That, however, is something you just want to ignore.
It must be nice to live in a world where you can demand so much from everyone else and nothing of the kind from the very people you vote for. Really what color is the sky in your world?
sbj, I would recommend to you that if you want to be taken seriously by any left-minded individual that you not link to hair-on-fire-crazy Michelle Malkin or FoxNews. We don’t believe anything that we read there (and really do they even believe it?), and it makes people dismiss you outright. Link to something reputable and not the ravings of a child-stalker or the carnival barker’s network…
@chris: It’s partly cloudy with light blue skies. About 72F.
…and Chris, sbj isn’t serious, none of them are. Their only intent is to muddy the waters with their poop so much that when it comes time to reflect on what’s happened in two years time that people can’t clearly make a decision and think, “all the scandals the past few years, I should vote for the party out of power to show these guys”
why not, it worked in 1994?
folks – you all really need to get off of the “last 8yrs thing” – and start worrying about today. I don’t care about 2007, or 2006, or ‘05 etc. I did not vote for George Bush, he’s gone. I don’t care about Clinton’s indiscretions, I don’t care about BushtheElder’s read my lips, I don’t care about Reagan’s Star Wars or Carter’s killer rabbit.
I care about now. I care about this fall, I care about next year.
@williamC: It’s hard to see when wearing blinders. (Since I was quoting I was just giving credit.) I have never linked to FoxNews? This attitude towards facts and their source reminds me of what VDH said of Obama:
“Obama is a postmodernist. He believes that all truth is relative, and that assertions gain or lose credibility depending on the race, class, and gender of the speaker.”
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=OTAyNzFjMmMwOWJjYmFmMTA2ODdjODZmZmQ0MWE1Mzg=&w=MQ==
Weren’t we told that we had to pass this stimulus fast to help stop the rise in unemployment? Is it not true that unemployment has continued to rise? Is it not true that Gibbs said we could now judge the stimulus?
“To get the stimulus passed, the Obama administration promised the moon, and had no idea whether it would work.”
http://campaignspot.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YTVmZGYxMDJkNDJkZTU1NWMyMDMyMDFhNTRhZDZiZjU=
@sbj, you link to hotair and nro. Might not be Fox but it’s still not anything close to objectivity. Any sources that aren’t right wing opinions?
I’ll say again, in case your Fox News teevee set was too loud, Obama has been in office for 6 months. The stimulus is 5 months old. It will take more than 5-6 months to fix 8 years of your conservative ideology rule. No one said it would all be okay in 6 months. The president has on numerous occasions said this will take time; and, in fact, said it would likely get worse before it gets better. The president led no one about the recovery.
Only Republicans and those now refusing to call themselves Republican claimed it all should be better now. Of course those– like yourself– claiming we were told it should be better by now are the same people refusing to admit just how bad George Bush’s Republican rule of this country really was.
As impatient as you are to call this economy and the war in Afghanistan Obama’s (which is total loony talk by the way), you sure are completely at peace with what your Party delivered to the America people.
I am at peace for I have been told that “when [I] die, on [my] deathbed, [I] will receive total consciousness.”
So I got that goin’ for me, which is nice.
“House Republican Leader John Boehner said he and his colleagues told Obama they feel the stimulus package is too expensive and too slow . . . Republicans have been seeking deeper tax cuts and have said there was no reliable estimate of the bill’s impact on employment. Democrats tried to mitigate the impact of a Congressional Budget Office study that questioned administration claims that the money could be spent fast enough to reduce joblessness quickly.”
“Yesterday, MS-NBC’s Chuck Todd asked White House press secretary Robert Gibbs when the time will come to judge the success of the stimulus package Barack Obama pushed Congress to pass. Gibbs says we can start now . . . The first test for this will be next Thursday, when the BLS announces the jobless rate for June. If it goes up — and indications this month show new claims rising each week — Obama will own it.”
I think we should be out of Afghanistan. Obama has escalated our efforts there. He continues to use unmanned drones that kill innocent civilians.
Caddyshack if I’m not mistaken. But I was barely born when that movie came out.
I believe I said judge it now. By all means judge it now. Just don’t act like the president said or lied as you claim, that everything would be better in 5-6 months. He never led on to that. As I said previously, he in fact said things could get worse and recovery would be slow.
Thanks to Bush’s blunder of Iraq, which turned our attention away from Afghanistan, we can’t be out. Sadly we’ve been there for 8 years. Obama is escalating efforts because Bush neglected the country and people actually responsible for 9/11. If you want out, then at the very least you can agree the fact that we are still there after 8 years is a horrible failure on the part of the conservative George Bush. But you won’t. You’ll just keep insisting you’ve been lied to about the stimulus while ignoring the need for the stimulus in the first place.
@Chris: Find one quote from sbj where I have written that “the president said . . . everything would be better in 5-6 months.” I haven’t written that so kindly stop putting words in my mouth.
Once again, I’m not complaining about the speed of the “economic recovery,” I’m complaining about the dishonest sales pitch Obama fed to us to get our congress to pass this mess. I’m complaing that we were told that shovel-ready meant quick jobs in construction and we still see continued job losses in construction. I’m complaining that we were told that unemployment would be better than it now is. I’m saying that we were told these lies so that the Dems could spend billions of dollars to prop up Democratic constituencies and fund liberal pet projects. I’m complaining that the Obama administration made a lot of claims about the stimulus in order to get it passed but had no idea whether it would work.
BONER. – Fail
Tea parties and tanning beds are the solution to Ohio’s problems!
@sbj, oh my. How can you possibly say you aren’t complaining about the speed of the recovery but are complaining about the results? My dear sbj, it’s only been 6 months since Obama took office. And only 5 months since the stimulus was signed. The results are dependent upon the time frame. Indeed you are complaining about the speed, because you obviously expect that in 5-6 months results to your liking should be achieved. Results you so demand be achieved now, that you are calling them lies.
I don’t know how you expect there to be such grand results in such a short time. And no where did the president lead on that by July things would be so much better. In fact, he did just the opposite and warned people that results would be slow and that things were likely to get worse first. The only people demanding things be better now are those who totally deny the actions of the last 8 years that led to an economic stimulus package in the first place. I’m sure you’re blushing right now.
@chris: Perhaps you’ll understand after reading this bit from Family Guy. The American public is Peter Griffin and Doug is Obama the salesman selling us the stimulus:
Doug:Hello, sir.
Peter Griffin:Enough with the foreplay. What are you selling?
Doug:Well, I was gonna try to sell you some “handsome cream” but I can see you already bought out the store!
Peter Griffin:Go on.
Doug:Perhaps you’d be interested in something every homeowner cannot be without.
Doug:Volcano insurance!
Peter Griffin:Go on.
Doug:According to my uncle, who’s a real whiz with volcanoes a volcano is coming this way!
Peter Griffin:PETER [Thinking]: I, too, have an uncle.
Peter Griffin:Come in.
Peter Griffin:How much is this volcano insurance?
Doug:I don’t know. Let’s say, $200.
Peter Griffin:$200? That’s more than I spent on all that handsome cream.
Peter Griffin:I don’t have that kind of money!
Doug:What about that jar of money?
Peter Griffin:PETER: No way! That’s Lois’ rainy day fund.
Doug:Come on, it never rains in Rhode Island.
Peter Griffin:Yeah, but I’m pretty sure we’ve never had a volcano either.
Doug:Well, don’t you think we’re overdue for one?
Peter Griffin:Touche, salesman.
@sbj, now you’re just making stuff up. Just admit it. You don’t think Obama inherited the worst combined financial and military crisis in American history all brought on by your Republican/conservative government. And that you think 5-6 months is ample time to see results that would make everything better. Apparently, we can go from losing 700,000 jobs a month under Republicans to a net gain in employment in 5-6 months. Reality just doesn’t work that way. But keep watching cartoons cause things will surely get better that way.
The economy & military situation in the 70’s was worse… remember the Vietnam war? Remember the draft?
Remember price & wage controls? Remember gasoline being rationed?
Both parties are an epic fail & and they continue to be both corrupt & ineffective. I support the TEA effort as it is a grass roots effort for true change. We were promised change, but we got more of the same. Obama is Bush III
The stimulus money is coming to the national parks and wildlife refuges. The estimate is over 100k jobs with private contractors just to start patching up the deferred maintenance of the Bush years. It looks like a number of previously unfilled replacement positions will also finally get filled. Patience in this day and age is not a virtue.
@sbj: The level of wrong you are warrants more response.
First off, “shovel ready” projects WERE/ARE the fastest projects we could have gotten – a good sales pitch doesn’t automatically make the product bad. They are the “quickest” jobs we could get. You’re arguement is that they lied somehow…but it’s obvious you’re just blowing smoke. They didn’t lie – shovel ready projects are the fastest way to get construction jobs and capital flowing. They were WRONG about the unemployment numbers, which they have ADMITTED. That doesn’t mean they lied about anything. All your trying to do is make it seem like they did…and losing the debate and credibility in the process.
However, I’d be curious what your “reasoned debate and negotiation” would have done for the economy by now? What’s the magical conservative plan that would have stopped job losses? Tax Cuts? Nope, that would have done NOTHING to stop unemployement from rising. Food Stamps, Unemployement Insurance, and Infrastructure Spending are the 3 top ways to stimulate the economy, create jobs, and spur growth. It’s a proven fact. Debate and Negotiations with Republicans in DC is a waste of time at this point…if we would have done that instead of passing the stimulus we’d see higher unemployment than we do now and an even slower recovery in the long run.
And linking to HotAir and NRO? Seriously? LOL, what a freakin’ joke. What’s next, you linking us up to Alan Keyes, RedState, and Free Republic? Excuse me, I have to go to the bathroom and poop out more credibility than any of those sources have at this point.
@BigBob: The economy was, by far, not worse in the 70’s. The only time in our country’s history the economy was “worse” was in the Great Depression. The situation with Vietnam and Now is debatable…but I should point out that Vietnam is was in the 60’s, not the 70’s.
Vietnam ended when?, 1975 – began in 1959, with heavy US involvement cranking up about ‘65-66?
50K lost lives & nothing gained, fortunes spent on nothing, a draft that terrorized every 17yr old male approaching his 18th birthday? Not debateable – not by a long shot.
The Bush/Obama years are, so far, ranking right up there with LBJ/Nixon.
Epic Fail.
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