Press Release

Hensarling Questions Stimulus Results
Cites media reports and highlights "Phantom Texas Congressional Districts"

WASHINGTON — “After the passage of the Obama Administration’s $1.2 trillion stimulus bill, over 3 million of our fellow countrymen lost their jobs and our nation suffers from the highest unemployment rate in a quarter of a century.

“This orgy of spending brought our nation its first trillion dollar deficit and our national debt will triple in the next 10 years. According to the Special Inspector General for the TARP program the taxpayer is now on the hook for up to $23.7 trillion dollars, or $202,940 per household.

“Proponents of government stimulus spending seem to forget that every dollar spent by the government has to be taken out of the private sector through taxes or borrowed to be paid back with the taxes of our children and grandchildren.

“Instead of providing significant tax relief for individuals, entrepreneurs, and small business owners in the 5th District of Texas, the stimulus bill spent $50 million for the National Endowment for the Arts, $300 million to buy government bureaucrats new cars, and $10 million for urban canals.

“Now we discover that much of the money cannot be properly accounted for and that, according to ABC News and other sources, the job creation claims are at best miscalculated and in many cases complete fabrications.

“We would not be having this discussion had the Administration and Majority Party chosen to stimulate the economy by providing tax relief and incentives to all families by reducing the lowest individual tax rates from 15% to 10% and from 10% to 5%. By allowing small businesses to take a tax deduction equal to 20% of their income, they could invest their earnings to provide sustainable, well paying new private sector jobs.

“There is no such thing as a jobless recovery.  No jobs, no recovery.  People in this economy are hurting. Hard working individuals have been laid off from their jobs and are running out of money as they dig deep into their savings, and they expect Washington to provide real job creation incentives, not spurious claims of success.”

To see the phantom congressional districts in Texas go to http://www.recovery.gov/Pages/TextView.aspx?data=stateSummaryAllCD&statecode=TX

For more information on the errors and fabrications on recovery.gov go to:
http://watchdog.org/2009/11/17/your-guide-to-the-stimulus-district-by-phantom-district/
 

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