Congressman
Henry E. Brown, Jr.

On August 17th, we reached the six-month anniversary of the signing of the President’s $787 billion economic stimulus plan. Since becoming law, over two million Americans have lost work and only 18 percent of Americans say that the trillion-dollar plan has helped the economy, and I would have to agree.

Since its signing on February 17, 2009, the American people have been waiting for the “jolt” to the economy and “immediate” creation of jobs that the Administration promised.  We have been waiting so long that my constituents in South Carolina are beginning to wonder if they will ever come.

The President insisted that to save or create up to four million jobs, Congress had to support this stimulus. Unfortunately, today, more than 2.8 million jobs have been lost and Congress continues to pass legislation that has added $869 billion in new debt, and will continue to further increase unemployment around the country.

We were told by the Administration that unemployment would rise as high as eight percent without the stimulus, but as we all know, national unemployment is now at nine and a half percent. In my home state of South Carolina it is 12 percent. 

It’s a shame that, while my constituents are desperately waiting for jobs, the Democratic leadership has made job creation a lower priority than growing government, increased borrowing and ever greater federal spending.

In fact, the runaway spending that has been forced through the Democrat Congress, since January, has finally added up to the unimaginable- One Trillion Dollars in a month. To put this number in perspective, One Trillion Dollars is enough money to:
•    Buy everyone in the First District their own 26-acre island in Panama.

•    Spend a dollar per second for 32,000 years.

•    Stack up $ 1,000 bills, $ 1 trillion would need a pile that is 80 miles high.

•    Buy the most expensive house on the market in Charleston ($13 Million) 77,000 times.

•    Pay the rent of every renter in the US for 3 years and the mortgage of every homeowner for 14 months.

This type of spending shows no sign of slowing and unless we get this spending surge in check, Americans will be indebted to the recklessness of this Congress for decades to come. We must make hard choices to halt this slide into fiscal disaster to protect our children and grandchildren from an overwhelming financial burden in the future.

Republicans offered a better solution for fast-acting tax relief for working families and small businesses that would have created twice the jobs at half the cost, but unfortunately our alternatives were and continue to be ignored.

Our nation deserves a strategy for prosperity, not more spending, more taxes and more unemployment. In the next six months, Democrats must join Republicans in making our number one priority getting Americans back to work.  My constituents are getting tired of waiting.

Note: A recent Gallup poll, of 1,010 adults nationwide, states that after six months, less than two in ten Americans say they have been helped by the supposedly timely “stimulus”, with 18 percent saying that the economic stimulus plan has made their financial situation better, 13 percent saying that it has made their financial situations worse and 68 percent saying that the economic stimulus has had no effect on their financial situation whatsoever.

Posted by Congressman Brown (08-27-2009, 02:25 PM) filed under Economy

 

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