Organizing for America | Steven Beller's Blog: Unemployment GOP hypocrisy

Unemployment GOP hypocrisy

By Steven - Sep 4th, 2009 at 11:26 am EDT

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Tags: GOP, stimulus, stimulus package, unemployment

I am not an economist, but someone on our side needs to come up with a figure for the unemployment rate as it WOULD have been if there had been no stimulus package. It is sheer hypocrisy for the GOP to blast the administration for not doing enough about jobs when they would have done nothing at all--except more tax cuts for the wealthy, which would have ballooned the deficit, made the situation for the worst off even worse, without much impact on jobs. But we desperately need to win the rhetorical battle by pointing out how much has been gained and how much has been saved by the stimulus package. If, as reported yesterday, the package boosted GDP by 2 or 3% that must have had a substantial impact on jobs, in the millions. Until we can say, however, that the unemployment rate would have been, let us say, well over 10% by now, at x%, perhaps 15%, without the stimulus package, then we cannot compete from the high ground that we should be on in this debate. So, how many jobs, as a percentage of the workforce, has the stimulus sacved so far, ballpark?

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