House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, attacked President Obama over the stimulus which — according to recent news reports — provided some taxpayer funding for overseas jobs, while the White House argued that the stimulus “broke the back” of the recession.
“They have a right to know where the hell the Obama administration shipped their tax dollars overseas during a recession here at home,” Boehner said during his press briefing today. “I think that the president owes every American an explanation.”
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Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell,R-Ky., also criticized the president for his overseas job creation. “This is just the latest unintended consequence of a bill that’s been better at creating punch lines for late-night talk show hosts than good American jobs,” he said in a statement to The Washington Examiner yesterday.
White House Press Secretary Jay Carney defended Obama against this charge yesterday, even while conceding that it did pay for some job creation overseas. “And when you have foreign companies that are creating operations here in the United States, the fact that — in one case, South Koreans were a part of that — the broader truth of it is that many many jobs for Americans were created here and facilities were built here that will continue to create jobs and give economic benefit here in the United States,” he said yesterday.
The Republican Policy Committee hammered Obama on the issue, releasing a list of instances showing taxpayer dollars spent in support of foreign jobs. “The Energy Department admitted that 80 percent of some green energy programs — including $2.3 billion in manufacturing tax credits — benefitted foreign firms employing workers in China, South Korea, Spain, and other countries,” RPC said.
Today, Carney added that the 2009 stimulus is “widely recognized to have broken the back of the recession.” Of course, the stimulus to prevent unemployment from going above eight percent unemployment, as Obama’s economic advisers said it would.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., disagreed with Carney. “Unfortunately, President Obama’s faith in government is so absolute he still doesn’t seem to see what a titanic failure this bill has been,” he said.
