U.S. Growth Rate vs. Obama Jobs Bill

Some readers have asked me to talk about the 2% growth rate that economists believe would be generated by President Obama's proposed "American Jobs Act." To some it sounded low. Actually, what the economists said was that it would boost growth by another 2%!

If you look at U.S. growth historically, the average growth rate has been 3.28% - but during the peak of the recession in 2009 our growth rate was a negative 6.8%!

Economist say this: "Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, estimated that the president’s plan would boost economic growth by 2 percentage points, add 2 million jobs and reduce unemployment by a full percentage point next year compared with existing law.

Macroeconomic Advisers wasn’t quite as optimistic, but its analysis projected that the White House plan “would give a significant boost to GDP and employment over the near-term.” The firm would expect to see the proposal create at least 1.3 million jobs.

The writer closed with this thought that should be asked: "There are reasonable questions as to whether congressional Republicans even want to improve the economy at all, but if lawmakers have any interest in creating jobs and boosting growth, the American Jobs Act would work."

So, if the economists say it will work, then why are the Republicans opposing it? Do they want the economy to fail so they can take over the White House? If so, they have forgotten why they are in Congress - we have 14 million people out of work who aren't getting paid to play political games for power...

It's no wonder why people have taken to the streets to "Occupy Wall Street" if the answer to our economic mess is to "do nothing"...