CBO Report: Recovery Act Is Working

May 26, 2010

A report issued by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office Tuesday shows that the Recovery Act, the centerpiece of President Obama's economic recovery plan, is having an even greater impact than originally projected. From the Wall Street Journal:

Through the first quarter of 2010, the stimulus boosted employment by an estimated 1.3 million to 2.8 million jobs, about a quarter or half million more than projected. Gross domestic product was 1.7 to 4.1 percentage points higher than it would have been without the stimulus, the nonpartisan budget office said.

In fact, the CBO projects that unemployment would be up to 1.5 percentage points higher without the stimulus, and anticipates that as many as "3.7 million American jobs could be attributed to the Recovery Act by the end of September."

As Washington Monthly's Steve Benen says, "There's a word to describe a recovery effort like this: success."

Yet Republicans, who fought the President at every turn to block the Recovery Act, continue to insist that it has been a failure. This video from Americans United for Change sums up the GOP opposition:  

The bottom line? If Republicans had done things their way, 2.8 million more Americans would be unemployed.