With White House officials hyping this as the “Recovery Summer,” President Barack Obama’s visit to Columbus on June 18 was the first stop on a six-week tour across the U.S. promoting the Recovery Act.
Obama spoke on Columbus’ east side detailing the benefits of the stimulus plan on the economies of Central Ohio and the country.
Despite the president’s message of hope for the economic future, most Republicans and some economists aren’t buying in.
Ohio Republican Party spokesman John McClelland called Obama’s visit to Columbus a “waste of a trip,” citing a lack of support for the stimulus plan and wavering public opinion of the president.
Obama said the roadway project will create more than 2,300 jobs in Columbus while similar projects will put thousands more Americans to work nationwide and help jumpstart the economy.
McClelland again disagreed.
“It’s funny that you’re going to promote a road when you have 400,000 Ohioans who don’t have a job to drive to anymore,” McClelland said.
One OSU economics professor echoed McClelland’s dismay with Obama’s plan.
“Most of the stuff that they did was very slow, a gradual build up to keep the unionized workers and state governments employed,” said OSU professor of economics Paul Evans. “So I can’t say that this is a particularly well designed proposal.”
Evans said that rather than focusing on a more long-term economic shift, the focus should have been directed towards a more rapid fix.
“They would have done a lot better if they would have just done something that was quick,” Evans said. “Spending on something that would have hit right away rather than what they actually ended up spending on.”
One possible solution Evans suggested was the short term lowering of sales taxes to help encourage immediate spending. He said that this would pump more money into the economy to help revive it and then taxes would be raised back once the economy is strengthened.
McClelland insisted the main focus is creating jobs.
“The important issue to Ohio is jobs, not how many times the president comes to visit,” he said.
Those in the White House, however, say that since the Recovery Act’s inception in February 2009, between 2.2 million and 2.8 million jobs had been created as of March 2010, and up to 3.5 million jobs will be created by the end of the year.
Still, McClelland said the president’s policies are not helping Ohioans.
“The real issues are the policies and programs that he is promoting that are actually hurting Ohio taxpayers, Ohio families and Ohio businesses,” he said. “That’s why you’re probably going to see Republicans do well at the elections this fall.”
