President Barack Obama billed it as an adrenaline jolt to a depleted economy: a $787 billion stimulus that not only would put people back to work but also underwrite new construction and energy projects the U.S. had long neglected.
But with the economy still sputtering and some economists questioning whether the program is meeting its goals, Obama doubled down on his promises, vowing to accelerate stimulus spending, with the goal of creating or saving 600,000 jobs by summer’s end.
At the outset of a meeting with Cabinet officers, Obama sought to claim substantial progress while holding down expectations.
“We’ve done more than ever, faster than ever, more responsibly than ever, to get the gears of the economy moving,” Obama said, and “we’re in a position to really accelerate.”
Still, he acknowledged that job loss, though lower than expected in May, remained high, saying “it’s going to take a considerable amount of time for us to pull out” of a deep recession.
While results from the stimulus program are difficult to measure, the evidence suggests the promised spending has been slow.
Only about 6 percent of the stimulus money was spent as of May 29, about 100 days after Obama signed the bill into law.
And on the jobs front, an early target was missed. On Jan. 9, two of the president’s top economic advisers put out a report predicting that with the stimulus plan, the unemployment rate this year would not exceed 8 percent. It stands at 9.4 percent, a figure that’s higher than the aides, Christina Romer and Jared Bernstein, said it would be if the stimulus plan were not adopted.
Kevin Hassett, director of economic policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank in Washington, said: “The actual unemployment rate is worse than their baseline, suggesting that their stimulus plan was harmful.”
Obama insisted that the stimulus is paying off by creating or saving 150,000 jobs.
Any figure involves guesswork, the administration concedes. Bernstein, Vice President Joe Biden’s economic adviser, said the 150,000 number is “an estimate” based partly on what the economy would look like without the bill. He could not break down how many jobs were created and how many saved.
And the public may be getting impatient. A new Gallup poll shows Obama is personally very popular, but people are not as happy with his stewardship of the economy: 51 percent disapproved; 45 percent approved.
