Package hasn’t stopped the slide

Poor Joe Biden. The famously talkative vice president keeps the administration’s tight message machine constantly on edge.

They say in Washington that a gaffe is when you slip up and accidentally say the truth. That’s sometimes Biden’s problem.

In early February as the administration was stumping across the country to gain favor for its stimulus plan, Biden told one group: “If we do everything right, if we do it with absolute certainty, there’s still a 30 percent chance we’re going to get it wrong.”

You tell ‘em, Joe.

In the run-up to the stimulus bill, the economy was continuing its slide. We were seeing huge job losses each month. Credit was tight to nonexistent. Nervous consumers were scared to spend. President Obama said the only solution was a $787 billion “stimulus” bill that would get money flowing through the economy again.

When the president was selling his plan to the public and the Congress, he laid out his goals for the bill. First, Obama said it would create and save jobs. Second, he said that somehow an almost unimaginable amount of money would be spent quickly to spur the economy.

By the administration’s own yardstick, the package has fallen far short.

Obama said the stimulus bill would keep unemployment from rising above 8 percent. Today, unemployment stands at 9.4 percent. This year, the nation has lost nearly 3 million jobs. In fact, unemployment right now is higher than the White House predicted we’d see if we did nothing at all. And another 350,000 Americans hit the unemployment rolls last month — this in an economy where we need to create at least 125,000 new jobs per month just to keep up with the growth of the working-age population. The president now admits that unemployment will worsen and will peak above 10 percent in the fall.

On the second front, while the White House promised to “get the money out the door” as fast as possible, it’s obvious the government doesn’t work that way. As of late May, only $36 billion had actually been spent.

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that only 24 percent of the stimulus will be spent during this budget year, which ends Sept. 30. A full quarter of the bill will be expended during the budget years 2011 to 2015, well past the time the federal government could justify deficit spending in the name of the recession.

As Americans, we all hope the economy starts humming again. We’ll need a strong economy and then some to pay off this money the Democrats are borrowing from China. In the short term, the stimulus isn’t stimulating. In the long term, it’s weight around the neck of the U.S. economy.

As Joe Biden said recently, “We know some of this money is going to be wasted.”

Yep. Right again.

Lynn Westmoreland, R-Newnan, represents Georgia’s 3rd Congressional District.