In 2009, United States Senator Bill Nelson told Floridians that he would be supporting Barack Obama’s $825 billion stimulus, because it was a “jobs” bill that would help repair America’s aging roads and bridges. 

After the bill passed the House of Representatives it was revealed that only 5 percent of the so-called stimulus was spent on infrastructure.  It was then revealed that billions of dollars were given to tax cheats and millions of dollars were spent in fictitious congressional districts.       

Now that it’s been widely accepted that the first $825 billion stimulus was a boondoggle, that never ‘saved or created’ 206,000 Florida jobs, Bill Nelson now wants a do-over as Democrats in the Senate will be voting on a $50 billion infrastructure stimulus later this week. 

As The Hill reports:

President Obama’s proposal to create a national infrastructure bank and spend $50 billion on transportation to stimulate job growth will be up for a vote in the Senate this week. … The president incorporated it into his proposal for a $447 billion jobs act, which the Senate is now voting on in pieces after its rejection as a package.

“Bill Nelson said that the first $825 billion stimulus would be used on infrastructure projects, but rather than explaining what went wrong, he wants another $50 billion in government stimulus so he and Obama can have a mulligan.  With our country’s debt at nearly $15 trillion, Florida simply cannot afford the job-killing, tax-and-spend experiments of Bill Nelson.” Jahan Wilcox, NRSC Spokesman

BACKGROUND 

Bill Nelson Promised The Stimulus Would ‘Create or Save’ 206,000 Florida Jobs With Funds Being Used For Infrastructure Projects 

BILL NELSON: “Specifically, in Florida, this bill is going to ‘create or save’ 206,000 jobs. Nationwide it is going to be somewhere between 3 million and 4 million jobs it is going to create or save.” (Sen. Bill Nelson, Congressional Record, 2/13/09, p. S2281)

• Nelson Predicted The Jobs Would Be Restored Within A Year And A Half. “He said the package is expected to restore 206,000 of the 255,000 jobs lost in Florida so far in the economic crisis, within one-and-a-half years.” (Deborah Buckhalter, “Sen. Nelson Speaks To Stimulus,” Jackson County Floridan, 2/19/09)

BILL NELSON: “We’re Going To Increase The Investment In Roads And Bridges And Mass Transits. We Need All Of This In Florida. This Is Stimulus. This Is Providing Jobs. This Is Helping People In Need. This Is The Right Thing To Do For Florida.” (Sen. Bill Nelson, Congressional Record, 2/13/09, p. S2281)

• Nelson Said The Stimulus Contained Spending On “Roads And Other Infrastructure, Broadband Application.” NELSON: “So you can see how just through the tax code, not even talking about the spending that’s going to go in and jumpstart the economy on roads and other infrastructure, broadband application, all of this, you get that jolt into the economy with the Secretary of the Treasury trying to improve the financial condition of the banks and do something about the mortgages, in tandem, those two things you ought to see an improvement as we get into 2010 and then toward the latter part of 2010.” (MSNBC, 2/10/09)

NELSON: “I Want To See It Increased On Roads And Bridges And U.S. Army Corps Of Engineer’s Projects That Will Get Money Into The Economy And Jobs Stimulated. And If We Can Do That, Then I Intend To Vote For It.” (CNN’s, “Newsroom,” 2/3/09)