White House: Stimulus law working as promised

President Barack Obama’s $800 billion-plus economic stimulus law may not be earning good grades with the public, but the White House claims it’s on track to produce the promised 3.5 million jobs.

Friday’s report says about two-thirds of the stimulus money has been spent via tax cuts or government spending and remarkably little of the money has gone out fraudulently.

The stimulus bill was passed in February of last year to try to reverse the worst recession since the Great Depression. The White House and many economists credit it with giving the economy a needed jolt. But Republicans say it’s been ineffective, citing a nationwide unemployment rate still hovering near 10 percent.

“We continue to show consistent progress on your commitment to create or save 3.5 million jobs by the end of calendar year 2010,” Vice President Joe Biden wrote in presenting the report to Obama. “In addition, over 95 percent of working families have seen their taxes lowered.”

The idea driving the stimulus bill was to inject demand into the economy through federal spending and tax cuts. The report says about $300 billion in spending has gone out for jobless benefits, government projects, and grants to states to ease layoffs of workers.

Another $243 billion has gone to businesses and individuals in tax cuts, including Obama’s signature “Making Work Pay” tax credit of $400 for individuals and $800 for couples.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office says the legislation is responsible for as few as 1.4 million jobs and as many as 3.3 million. The report also cites a study by noted economists Mark Zandi and Alan Blinder, who estimated that unemployment would have spiked to 11.6 percent by the end of this year had the stimulus measure not been passed.

Still, frustrated voters give the stimulus program low marks in opinion polls, such as a CBS News survey in July in which 56 percent of respondents said it had no impact, while 18 percent said it actually made the economy worse.

Republicans say the measure is a leading example of wasteful spending by Washington Democrats. And they hammer a White House prediction that the measure would limit unemployment to 8 percent.

“The administration predicted that unemployment wouldn’t rise above 8 percent if the trillion-dollar stimulus became law,” said Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. “We know how that turned out.”

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