Economic Recovery Facts
One week and one day after the President made his inaugural address, one week and one day, we passed the Recovery Act in the House and in a few weeks it was in the Senate saving or creating millions of jobs for the American people. One week and one day. Here we are over 300 days [of House Republican control], no such legislation. From a policy standpoint he was a job creator from day one. Now was the ditch we were in so deep that when you're talking to people and they still don't have a job that that's any consolation to them? No. But I'll tell you this, if President Obama and Congressional Democrats had not acted we would be at 15% unemployment--again, no consolation to those without a job but an important point to make.
As Leader Pelosi referenced, we would be in a much worse place had it not been for Democratic action. According to a study last year by economists Alan Blinder and Mark Zandi, the unemployment rate would have been 15.7% last fall--instead of the 9.8%--without federal action, including the Recovery Act. From page 6 of their study:
As these jobs charts show, we are headed in a much better direction--particularly with regards to private sector jobs where more than one million jobs have been added this year and we've had 19 consecutive months of job gains:
As Leader Pelosi said, this progress is of little consolation to unemployed Americans--unemployment is still unacceptably high. Equally unacceptable is the lack of action on jobs by House Republicans--after 303 days of House Republican control, they still refuse to put forth a jobs agenda preferring their "Faux 15" bills that fail to create jobs and only weaken the economy. It's long past time to pass the bipartisan China currency legislation to create more than 1 million jobs and level the playing field for our businesses and workers and pass President Obama's American Jobs Act.
PS: House Republicans have voted 17 times against Democratic proposals or efforts to consider proposals – several of which are bipartisan – to create or protect American jobs in the House this year.