Gingrich Lies About White House Jobs Summit
During a December 2, 2009 appearance on Fox News' Hannity, former Speaker Newt Gingrich falsely claimed the White House Jobs Forum didn't include "a single small business," and the stimulus created "virtually no jobs." Both claims are blatant untruths.
Gingrich Lies About White House Jobs Summit
Gingrich: We had a great, great town hall meeting here in Cincinnati, and we actually had real job creators here, unlike the Obama summit. We have people who have created real work, who've hired real people, who are real manufacturers.
The tragedy of tomorrow's meeting in the White House is I don't believe there's a single small business that's going to be at that meeting, and yet, small businesses create three out of every four new jobs.
Hannity: Well, but obviously the only jobs that we see being created right now are government jobs. That's the only growth sector in terms of job growth.
What does it mean that his projection for job growth , which was - it wouldn't go above 8 percent unemployment if we passed the stimulus, otherwise we faced a catastrophe. What does that say about his stimulus plan? Does that mean it's failed?
Gingrich: Of course, it's failed. The stimulus plan was a politician pay-off to other politicians. It allowed governors and mayors and county commissions to avoid hard choices and wasted an enormous amount of money while creating virtually no jobs. [Fox News, Hannity, 12/2/09]
White House Jobs Summit Hosted Small And Large Businesses
Fox News: "Obama Sought Fresh Ideas From The 130 Corporate Executives, Small Business Owners And Labor Leaders." As reported by Fox News, "Obama sought fresh ideas from the 130 corporate executives, small business owners and labor leaders who attended the jobs forum. The president said the leading question of the day is 'how do we get businesses to start hiring again.'" [Fox News, 12/3/09; emphasis added]
White House Jobs Summit Hosted Both Small And Large Businesses. According to the New York Times:
The invitations went out just before Thanksgiving, but by the end of the holiday weekend the White House has confirmed that President Obama's jobs summit on Thursday will include about 130 business leaders, union chiefs, academics, mayors and representatives of nonprofit groups.
The business leaders represent companies large and small, and both traditional and innovative. They include CEOs such as Eric E. Schmidt of Google, and Robert A. Iger of the Walt Disney Co., as well as David Ickert, an executive of Air Tractor Inc. of Olney, Texas, a small manufacturer of planes for agriculture and forest fire-firefighting, an administration official said on Sunday. [New York Times, 11/29/09; emphasis added]
Recovery Act Created Up To 1.6 Million American Jobs
CBO: The American Recovery And Reinvestment Act Has Created Up To 1.6 Million American Jobs. According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, "CBO now estimates that in the third quarter of calendar year 2009, ARRA's policies raised real GDP by between 1.2 percent and 3.2 percent, lowered the unemployment rate by between 0.3 and 0.9 percentage points, and increased the number of people employed by between 600,000 and 1.6 million compared with what those values would have been otherwise." [CBO, 11/30/09; emphasis added]
