Rep. Cantor's Video Has A Disconnect With The Truth
Immediately following President Obama's first State of the Union, the office of House Republican Whip Eric Cantor released a video titled "The Democrat Disconnect." By cutting together several sound bites and providing no facts or context, all that Cantor's office has produced, however, is a video that has disconnected from reality. In reality, the Recovery Act has created 1.6 million American jobs, and clean energy and health care reform would create millions more.
"The Democrat Disconnect: A Response To President Obama's State Of The Union"
The Jobs Are...In Clean Energy
Investment In Clean Energy Technology Creates FOUR TIMES As Many Jobs As An Investment In Oil & Gas. According to the Center for American Progress, "spending $1 million on energy efficiency and renewable energy produces a much larger expansion of employment than spending the same amount on fossil fuels or nuclear energy. Among fossil fuels, job creation in coal is about 32 percent greater than that for oil and natural gas. The employment creation for energy efficiency-retrofitting and mass transit-is 2.5 times to four times larger than that for oil and natural gas. With renewable energy, the job creation ranges between 2.5 times to three times more than that for oil and gas." [Center for American Progress, The Economic Benefits of Investing in Clean Energy, 6/17/09]
Investment In Clean Energy Technology Would Create Up To 1.9 Million American Jobs. According to the University of California-Berkeley, "new analysis by the University of California shows conclusively that climate policy will strengthen the U.S. economy as a whole. Full adoption of the ACES package of pollution reduction and energy efficiency measures would create between 918,000 and 1.9 million new jobs." [UC Berkeley, accessed 1/22/10]
- Every Single State Will Gain Jobs From An Investment In Clean Energy Technologies. According to the Center for American Progress, investments in clean energy projects would create 1.7 million American jobs in every state in the country. [Center for American Progress, The Economic Benefits of Investing in Clean Energy, 6/17/09]
Investment In Renewable Energy Has Already Salvaged Many Manufacturing Facilities Closed During Economic Downturn. Across America, factories and plants abandoned by the old economy have been re-tooled and re-opened to satisfy the growing demand for new energy technologies. For instance, once hopeless manufacturing plants in Pennsylvania, Iowa, and Michigan have re-energized their communities by creating jobs and leading the charge toward a new energy future. [Bloomberg, 4/2/09; Star Tribune, 4/22/09; Grand Rapids Press, 3/6/08]
...Created By The Recovery Act
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]
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]
...And Will Result With The Passage Of Health Care Reform
Health Care Reform Could Create Up To 400,000 Jobs Within The Next 10 Years. According to the Center for American Progress:
Clearly, health care reform that reduces premium growth is economic policy as well as health policy. The reform goals of a healthier America are well understood. In this paper, however, we demonstrate a less emphasized point about the health care reform legislation currently before Congress-if successful, its provisions can lower the costs of business and increase both the number of jobs by 250,000 to 400,000 annually over the next decade and increase wage growth.
Health care reform that includes even more robust measures to contain health care costs could further enhance job creation. In an economy that has lost 5 million jobs in the past year and where wages have stagnated for many years, this is a strong reason to pass health care reform that contains growth in health care costs and modernizes the U.S. health care system. [Center for American Progress, New Jobs Through Better Health Care, January 2010; emphasis added]
