One Year Later…Where Are All the Promised Stimulus jobs? Taxpayers left holding the $800 billion bill, but jobs still missing
For Immediate Release
February 17, 2010
Contact: Kerry Niemcek
920-257-9746
A year later, and the people of Northeastern Wisconsin are still looking for the jobs alleged to have been created through last year’s federal ‘stimulus’ package supported by Congressman Steve Kagen.
Republican candidate Reid Ribble, a former Kaukauna-area roofing contractor, questioned the results of Kagen’s spending plan. According to the federal government’s own website, Recovery.com, Wisconsin’s Eighth Congressional District is set to receive over $272 million, which has only created 217 jobs.
“So far, the federal government has spent $1.25 million for each job created in Northeastern Wisconsin,” Ribble said. “This Congress continues to spend future generations into debt. Nancy Pelosi and Steve Kagen have mismanaged taxpayer dollars and continue to do so, while jeopardizing our future by growing our deficit to record levels.”
On February 4, 2009, the Shawano Leaderpublished an article about a “listening session” Kagen held with constituents. One of the topics was of the so-called stimulus bill:
“Kagen also took several questions from callers demanding to know how the $815 billion in the proposed stimulus package would be spent, and he sought to draw a distinction between this bill and the Wall Street bailout he voted against last year. ‘This bill has unprecedented oversight,’ Kagen said, adding that oversight and accountability had been lacking in the bailout bill.”
“I would argue that the Kagen set the bar pretty low as far as oversight,” Ribble said. “We needed jobs a year ago, not a year from now. Spending millions on projects like turtle crossings in Florida isn’t the ‘stimulus’ Wisconsin needs.”
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Wisconsin’s unemployment rate was 7% in January of 2008. The most recent data shows the unemployment rate in Wisconsin as 8.7% for November 2009.
Wisconsin’s Eighth Congressional District allocation of stimulus money can be found at: http://www.recovery.gov/Transparency/RecipientReportedData/Pages/RecipientReportedDataMap.aspx
Click on “Funding” next to the Map View in the right hand side of the map. Select “Congressional District” and click on the outline of northeastern Wisconsin.
Highlights from the Shawano Leader story are found on Congressman Kagen’s website at: http://www.kagen.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=296:stimulus-top-topic-of-kagen-call-&catid=66:in-the-news&Itemid=195
Unemployment statistics are found at: http://data.bls.gov/PDQ/servlet/SurveyOutputServlet?data_tool=latest_numbers&series_id=LASST55000003
