Today marks the two year anniversary of the hallmark failure of the Obama Administration: the signing of the “stimulus” package into law. There is little for taxpayers to celebrate on the second anniversary of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act as every promise made regarding the spending plan by the White House has been broken.

• Promise: Absent an infusion of “stimulus” cash, unemployment would skyrocket to 8 percent.
  Two years later: Over the past 21 months, unemployment has yet to drop below 9 percent, with over 150 economists urging the President to stop his spending binge to spur real economic growth.
   
• Promise: Using the creative, but totally unverifiable metric of jobs “saved or created” the President claimed the “stimulus” plan would “save or create” 3.5 million jobs.
  Two years later: the economy has almost 6 million fewer jobs than the Administration promised it would with the passage of the “stimulus” package.
   
• Promise: “…every American will be able to go online and see where and how we're spending every dime.”
  Two years later: After an $18 million overhaul, Recovery.gov remains as useless as the day it first launched, unable to track where federal funds have gone. Between the White House, Congress, and agencies tasked with monitoring “stimulus” funds, no consensus has been made on how much of the “stimulus” has been spent. Estimates of funds left over range from $5 billion to $160 billion.
   
• Promise: The federal infusion of cash would shore up state budgets that had fallen victim to a struggling economy.
  Two years later: Not required to face their fiscal reckoning from overspending, state and local budgets accepted “stimulus” funds from the federal government, increasing obligations at a time they should have been cutting their bottom lines. As a result, the states face a $72 billion shortfall heading into 2011 and are scrambling to fund the promises made with short-term “stimulus” handouts.

“All told, the two year anniversary of the “stimulus” program paints a bleak picture for taxpayers,” said Americans for Tax Reform President Grover Norquist. “The President’s budget, released this week, shows the White House can’t learn from its mistakes: the budget calls for $50 billion in more “stimulus” spending, despite the fact that the Recovery Act failed to live up to any of its promises. The remaining money should be rescinded immediately and under no circumstances should policymakers entertain the notion of embarking on another failed spending experiment. Republicans, who inserted language by Rep. Sean Duffy (R-Wis.) into the Continuing Resolution to rescind the “stimulus” funds, get it. Why doesn’t the President? ”

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Posted by Mattie Duppler on Thursday, February 17, 2011 3:18 PM EST

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