Tim Kaine’s Endless Summer…

One Year After Declaring “Recovery Summer,” Stimulus Failure Continues To Highlight Former DNC Chairman’s Reckless Spending, Broken Promises

WASHINGTON — In case former DNC Chairman Tim Kaine’s campaign lost track of the date and forgot to remind Virginians, it’s been a full year since Kaine and his fellow Washington Democrats declared that it was “Recovery Summer,” promising that their $787 billion in reckless deficit spending would fix America’s ailing economy.

As the Richmond Times-Dispatch notes, “…the nation has lost 7 million jobs during roughly the same period that federal spending has grown by $1 trillion. A huge chunk of that sum was eaten up by federal stimulus funding, which raises reasonable questions as to why the economy has not been more stimulated.” As they also note in response to an Obama Administration official’s insistence that the stimulus was working, “[i]f he’s right, we shudder to imagine what failure would look like” – a sentiment that could just as easily apply to Kaine’s repeated defense of the spending spree.

So, to mark the one-year anniversary of Kaine and the Democrats’ “Recovery Summer,” it’s worth examining a few of the claims Tim Kaine and his bosses in the Obama Administration made while he was serving as the #1 Cheerleader for their failed economic policies.  For instance…

• Kaine claimed his stimulus would “create or save more than 3 million jobs.”  But America has lost nearly 1.9 million jobs since the stimulus was rammed into law.  As President Obama admitted this week, “[s]hovel-ready was not as … uh .. shovel-ready as we expected.”

• While Kaine’s bosses in the Obama Administration predicted the Democrats’ stimulus would keep unemployment below 8 percent, unemployment nearly two-and-a-half years later is 9.1 percent – and has remained above 8 percent for 28 consecutive months.

• And while Kaine claimed the stimulus would “accomplish critical objectives to get our economy growing again,” a report shows that stimulus funds have been spent on a large number of outrageous non-job-related projects, including a study to determine the effects of cocaine on monkeys, iPods for high school students, cell phones for smokers trying to quit, and advertising devoted to the promotion of the stimulus bill itself.

“Tim Kaine still believes it was a good idea for him and his fellow Washington Democrats to add $787 billion to our national debt in order to lose 1.9 million jobs – and that tells Virginians all they need to know about whether they can trust his judgment,” said National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) spokesman Chris Bond.

As Kaine continues to attempt to distance himself from his failed economic record in Washington, it’s worth remembering what his fellow Democrat and former Virginia Governor Doug Wilder said last week: “it will be very difficult for Kaine to disagree [with President Obama] on the issues, when you consider he was the head of the DNC and much of what he was parroting was what the Obama administration was speaking of.”

FACT CHECK: KAINE’S $787 BILLION STIMULUS FAILED TO

CREATE PROMISED JOBS WHILE DRIVING OUR

NATIONAL DEBT PAST $14.3 TRILLION

STIMULUS RHETORIC:

• Tim Kaine Said The Stimulus Would Create Or Save Over 3 Million Jobs.Kaine: “. . . The stimulus bill does three things, Gretchen. It has tax cuts for working Americans — those that make — their families make less than $150,000 a year so they can pay bills, put food on the table, help their kids go to college and start spending again. It has infrastructure spending — roads, bridges, alternative energy projects — that will put people to work and then build a platform for greater economic growth. And then it has an important piece of relief as we take care of rising Medicaid and unemployment rolls for Americans that have been hit so hard by 1.8 million job losses in the last three months. This is exactly what we ought to do. We’ll create or save more than 3 million jobs — 90 percent of them in the private sector.” (Fox News, “Fox And Friends,” 2/10/09)

• “The Obama administration is defending its claim that the $787 billion economic stimulus plan will save or create 3.5 million jobs before 2011 even while conceding that unemployment will likely continue to rise beyond its earlier predictions.” (Stimulus plan will create or save 3.5 million jobs, White House says, Associated Press, 05/11/09)

STIMULUS REALITY:

• Our County Has Lost Nearly 1.9 Million Jobs Since The Stimulus Passed In February 2009. (Matt Clover, “1.9 Million Fewer Americans Have Jobs Today Than When Obama Signed Stimulus,” CNS News, 6/14/11)

• President Barack Obama: “Shovel-ready was not as … uh .. shovel-ready as we expected.” (President Barack Obama, Fox News, 06/13/11)

STIMULUS RHETORIC:

• President Obama’s Economic Advisors Christina Romer And Jared Bernstein Predicted Unemployment Would Not Rise Above 8 Percent If The Stimulus Was Passed. (Christina Romer and Jared Bernstein, “The Job Impact Of The American Recovery And Reinvestment Plan,”1/9/09)

STIMULUS REALITY:

• The Unemployment Rate Is 9.1 Percent And Has Remained Above 8 Percent For 28 Straight Months. (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, www.bls.gov, Accessed 6/3/11)

STIMULUS RHETORIC:

KAINE: The Stimulus Will “Accomplish Critical Objectives To Get Our Economy Growing Again.” (DNC Chairman Tim Kaine, www.youtube.com, Accessed 2/15/11)

STIMULUS REALITY:

Stimulus Dollars Have Been Thrown At Dubious, If Not Outrageous, Projects, Including:

• $2 million to capture and study exotic ants
• $71,000 to study how monkeys react under the influence of cocaine
• $750,000 to develop a computerized choreography program that could lead to a YouTube-like “Dance Tube” online application
• $554,000 to replace windows at a Washington visitor center with no plans to reopen the visitor center
• $54 million to develop a building for the Mohegan Tribe in Connecticut that will also serve as a practice facility for the WNBA’s Connecticut Sun women’s professional basketball team
• $300,000 to study whether Integral Yoga can be an effective method to reduce hot flashes in menopausal women
• $194,000 to study people’s perceptions of federal stimulus spending.

SOURCE: Sens. Tom Coburn and John McCain, “Summertime Blues: 100 Stimulus Projects That Give Taxpayers The Blues,” msnbcmedia.msn.com, 8/10