Congressman Adam Putnam strongly criticized a second economic stimulus measure the Democratic leadership rushed to the House Floor today (HR 2847), saying it repeated the waste and failures of the first effort. The measure narrowly passed Wednesday evening by 217 to 212.

“Unfortunately, this measure repeats all of the bad aspects of the earlier effort with billions of more dollars,” said Putnam.  “It’s a classic example of the Washington mindset that thinks the solution to a problem is always to throw more of the taxpayers’ money at it.

“The GAO just reported that only a third of the stimulus money from the first bill has actually been spent, and those much-ballyhooed ‘shovel ready’ infrastructure jobs haven’t appeared yet. We still have unemployment in the double digits. In the meantime, this bill adds another $150 billion to our national debt.

“Congress and the Administration need to wake up to the fact that we cannot borrow our way back into prosperity.”

Since 2001, Putnam has represented Florida’s 12^th Congressional District, which includes most of Polk County and portions of Hillsborough and Osceola counties.