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Obama in Columbus touts 10,000th stimulus project
Republicans jab Recovery Act’s impact
By MARC KOVAC
COLUMBUS
President Barack Obama made a quick stop in Ohio on Friday to tout the 10,000th road project started under last year’s federal stimulus package.
“I think that it’s fitting that we’ve reached this milestone here in this community, because what you’re doing here is a perfect example of the kind of innovation and coordination and renewal that the Recovery Act is driving all across the country,” the president said during a 12-minute speech near downtown Columbus.
Obama was joined by Gov. Ted Strickland, Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher and Democratic members of Ohio’s congressional delegation at the site of a $20 million-plus road project, part of improvements planned at and around Nationwide Children’s Hospital.
The visit was short, lasting about an hour. After speaking, the president shook hands with construction workers, waved to residents watching from barricades nearby, then headed to the Columbus airport for the flight back to Washington.
Obama focused his comments on the positive economic impact of federal recovery funding. To date, nearly $13 billion has been earmarked for Ohio, with upward of $7.5 billion already used, according to White House statistics.
“I don’t have to tell anyone here that these have been difficult times for Ohio and difficult times for the country,” Obama said. “When I was here last [in Columbus, about a year ago] America was losing 700,000 jobs per month. Our economy was shrinking, plants and businesses right here in Ohio were closing, and we knew that if we failed to act, then things were only going to get much worse. ...
“Since then, here in Ohio, nearly 2,400 small businesses have gotten loans [backed by the federal government] to keep their doors open and their workers on payroll, 4.5 million families have gotten tax cuts that helped pay their bills and put food on the table, some 450 transportation projects are under way or have been completed, and more than 100,000 Ohioans are at work today as a result of these steps.”
Republicans were quick, however, to point out that Ohio’s unemployment rate though lower in May than April, was still hovering in double digits.
“When the stimulus was enacted in February 2009, Ohio’s unemployment rate was only 9.4,” state Auditor and GOP lieutenant governor candidate Mary Taylor said in a released statement. “We have created over 17,000 jobs in the last month, but it’s an important fact to note that 16,800 of those jobs created were government jobs, so we’ve really only created a net 300 jobs in the last month.”
She added, “Ohio, in fact, isn’t using the stimulus money to create jobs outside of those jobs that are run by government. Half of the $3.3 billion dollars Ohio’s received so far have gone to run Medicaid, not invest in job creation, and that’s according to the governor’s own website.”
But Strickland defended the president and his efforts to deal with the economic downturn.
Since Obama became president, “he has prevented a total collapse of the economy,” the governor said following Friday’s speech. He added later, “This president is a responsible president who understands the needs of the current economy, and he is the guy that will get us to a state of financial and fiscal responsibility. But it’s going to take time because what he inherited was so bad that it has been difficult to turn it around in a year-and-a-half.”