He also argued that his stimulus plan aimed at boosting production while creating or retaining between three and four million jobs, and would inject new life into the shrinking economy.
He said his proposal was not "just be a short-term program to boost employment.
His economic team's report said some 500,000 jobs would be created by investing in clean energy and committing to double the production of alternative energy over the next three years.
About 400,000 people would be put to work repairing US infrastructure, including crumbling roads, bridges and schools, the advisers estimated.
"These made-in-America jobs building solar panels and wind turbines, developing fuel-efficient cars and new energy technologies pay well, and they can't be outsourced," Obama said.
And hundreds of thousands of others jobs were to be created through improvements to the nation's health care system.
Now fast-forward to the present and what exactly have we seen? According to this article in the Las Vegas Review-Journal not much.
As it turns out, most of that money is going where government always puts most of its money -- into fat paychecks for social service bureaucrats.
"Most of the roughly $300 billion coming directly to the states is being funneled through existing government programs for health care, education, unemployment benefits, food stamps and other social services," The Associated Press reported this week.
Two-thirds of recovery money that flows directly to states will go toward health care. Not hiring new doctors or nurses, mind you. Just paying medical bills for poor people -- and the salaries of those who handle this redistribution of your hard-earned cash.
By comparison, about 15 percent of the stimulus money will end up going for transportation -- including airports, highways and rail projects -- according to Federal Funds Information for States, a service of the National Governors Association and the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Overall, two-thirds of the stimulus funds will go to subsidize state budgets and unemployment compensation -- paying people not to work. Much smaller pieces of the pie will be allocated for weatherization, affordable housing and other projects designed to create jobs, The AP reports.
In Georgia for instance, two-thirds of the $3.9 billion in "stimulus" funds the state expects to receive over the next 16 months will go to support existing social programs. Mississippi expects to spend only about 13 percent of its $2.8 billion in federal "stimulus" money on highways and bridges. The rest will be spent, as it is in other states, to preserve existing government programs and jobs.
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