Heritage Foundation Fellow Spreads Recovery Act Falsehoods On CNN
During an interview with CNN, Heritage Foundation Senior Fellow Robert Rector falsely claimed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act is "not gonna put more jobs back into the economy." In reality, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates the Recovery Act has already created up to 1.6 million American jobs.
Heritage Fellow Robert Rector Spreads Conservative Falsehoods About The Recovery Act
Heritage Senior Fellow Robert Rector:
CNN CORRESPONDENT: Robert Rector, a senior fellow at the conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation, approves of using federal money for food banks, but, he argues, the entire stimulus bill merely expands welfare.
ROBERT RECTOR, HERITAGE FOUNDATION SENIOR FELLOW: It does help support people who've lost their jobs, and that's a good thing, but it's not gonna put more jobs back into the economy.
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]
Recovery Act Kept 6 Million Americans Out Of Poverty
CBPP: Recovery Act Is Keeping 6 Million Americans Out Of Poverty. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, "Although meant chiefly to help the broad economy, the stimulus plan Congress enacted earlier this year (the American Recovery and Re-Investment Act of 2009, or ARRA) had the important secondary effect of significantly ameliorating the recession's impact on poverty. This analysis, which comes one day before the Census Bureau will release updated poverty figures (for 2008), examines seven of the recovery act's provisions - two improvements in unemployment insurance, three tax credits for working families, an increase in food stamps, and a one-time payment for retirees, veterans, and people with disabilities - and finds that they alone are preventing more than 6 million Americans from falling below the poverty line and are reducing the severity of poverty for 33 million more. Those 6 million people include more than 2 million children and over 500,000 seniors. This analysis includes state-specific estimates for California, Texas, Florida, New York, and Illinois." [CBPP, 9/9/09]
