Senator Al Franken Blasts the Lying Liars of the Right

From Al Franken -- October 1, 2010:

As I've said, people are entitled to their own opinions. For instance, some of my colleagues voted against the Recovery Act because it went against their own personal ideologies or theories of economics--and that's fine.

But people aren't entitled to their own facts. And by distorting those facts, prominent conservatives have convinced many Americans that the Recovery Act didn't work--or, worse, that we should stop investing in job creation.

Well, I've had enough of the misinformation and confusion.

Here are the facts. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the Recovery Act has increased employment by somewhere between 1.4 million and 3.3 million jobs. A separate report, issued by two prominent economists (one of whom was a key advisor to John McCain in 2008), puts the figure at 2.7 million jobs.

More than a third of the Recovery Act was in the form of tax cuts. The aid to states and cities helped to keep teachers and firefighters on the job. And even though our economy is still struggling, the facts show that the Recovery Act served as a turning point to reverse our slide into another Great Depression.

Still, some insist that the only jobs it created are "government bureaucrat" jobs.

Tell that to the real Minnesotans who are working real jobs in the private sector and earning real paychecks thanks to the Recovery Act--people like Jamie, a Local 361 carpenter from Cloquet, and Spencer, a Local 49 crane operator from Isle, and Matthew and Randy, two Laborers from Local 563. They and many other Minnesotans are rebuilding our infrastructure and earning money that they're spending, increasing demand and helping to pull our economy out of this recession.