WASHINGTON, D.C. – House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-OH) and House Oversight & Government Reform Ranking Member Darrell Issa (D-CA) issued the following statement today after Vice President Joe Biden’s office responded to the letter Boehner and Issa sent last week by saying the Administration will continue to use the fictitious and unverifiable metric of jobs “saved or created” when discussing the results of Washington Democrats’ $787-billion “stimulus.”  Boehner and Issa issued the following statements:

“The Obama Administration is trying to scam the American people by continuing to repeat their phony ‘stimulus’ claims, including the number of jobs ‘saved or created’ – a metric it seems to have made up out of thin air,” Boehner said.  “As the CBO states on page one of their report, ‘it is impossible to determine how many of the reported jobs would have existed in the absence of the stimulus package.'”

Boehner continued, “The White House claimed that if we passed the trillion-dollar ‘stimulus’ unemployment would stay below eight percent and jobs would be created ‘immediately.’ Instead, unemployment is over 10 percent, more than three million more Americans have lost their jobs, and people are rightfully asking 'where are the jobs?’ Now, the White House is holding a ‘jobs summit’ while pressing ahead with a job-killing agenda, including a ‘cap and trade’ national energy tax and a trillion-dollar government takeover of health care.”   Ranking Member Issa said, “The Obama Administration continues to ignore the inconvenient reality that this economy continues to hemorrhage jobs under their watch.  An economic policy that borrows against the future, runs up record deficits and places that burden on our children and grandchildren is unsustainable and downright immoral.”

Issa added, “The American people’s confidence in this Administration continues to erode as misleading statistics are touted in an attempt to distract attention away from the failure to stop double-digit unemployment.  Economic well-being will only return when sound economic policies allow for real job creation in the private sector.”

NOTE:  The CBO’s finding also contradicts the claims of White House Council of Economic Advisors Chair Christina Romer, who said on October 22, “Most analysts predict that the fiscal stimulus will have its greatest impact on growth in the second and third quarters of 2009.  By mid-2010, fiscal stimulus will likely be contributing little to growth.”

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