Facts On Stimulus 1, Speculation Over Stimulus 2

Some of the hottest debate and speculation in the press this week has centered on the somewhat mixed signals emanating from all levels of the Obama administration concerning the propriety of a second, smaller economic stimulus package to kick-start a still sluggish economy.

The line seemed to shift in favor of another stimulus when Vice President Joe Biden hinted at such a possibility on Sunday and one of the president’s economic advisors complained that the current stimulus plan was “too small.”

A swift push against the notion that the first stimulus isn’t working came on Wednesday from the Deputy Director at OMB. Asked at a House hearing on where the truth lies on the opinion of a second stimulus, Robert Nabors insisted that” no one” in the White House “is talking about a second stimulus at this point.”

A much stronger stance on a second stimulus came later Wednesday when Robert Nabors, Deputy Director of the Office of Management and Budget was testifying on Capitol Hill about the current stimulus plan’s effects. “No one in the administration is talking about a second stimulus at this point,” he said. When asked about Tyson’s comments, Nabors replied, “She’s an outside economic advisor. She does not work for the administration.”

But then White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs still appeared to leave the door open for discussion of a new stimulus, telling reporters heading to the G-8 that the White House is “not ruling anything out” when it comes to patching up the economy.

On the way to Italy Wednesday morning aboard Air Force One, reporters asked White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs if the administration was considering a second stimulus program. Mr. Gibbs said Obama is, “not ruling anything out, but at the same time he’s not ruling anything in.”

“Obviously we passed a hefty recovery plan that implements over the course of about a two-year period of time, and we’re on track with that implementation,” he said.

No matter what the White House says, the final decision on whether a second stimulus is a worthy or politically savvy endeavor lies with Democrats in Congress. And besides a few smaller names panicking at the latest job figures, no one is seriously talking about writing up new stimulus projects or searching for new stimulus money. Yet…

But how about the original $800 billion stimulus? Why are we so quick to toss it over the cliff as if it was a failure when only $91 billion of ther total allotted money has been spent and yet 250,00 jobs have still been saved or created? 

A small fraction of the total federal stimulus bill has been awarded in contract awards thus far, and while the pace of contract awards has increased in the last four weeks, the full effect on job creation has yet to be felt, according to Mike Pickett, CEO of Seattle technology company Onvia, whose data powers Recovery.org.

Testifying before the House Government Reform Committee today, Pickett described the most current state of stimulus spending.

Recovery.org is reporting that 1,330 contracts - totaling $21 billion in stimulus spending - have been awarded to local contractors. Applying the White House’s Council of Economic Advisors’ formula to the $21 billion in awards, Recovery.org estimates that 230,000 jobs have been created or retained so far.

“Employers are not going to retain or hire new employees until they have the contracts in-hand.” said Pickett. “The job creation will come once the contracts are awarded.”

Overall, Recovery.org is currently tracking $90.7 billion in stimulus spending over 18,451 projects. This is the total stimulus funding figure for projects that are in the “pipeline,” having been publicly reported by Federal, state, local or regional government agencies…

“The good news regarding the nation’s employment picture is that the pace of stimulus spending has accelerated dramatically over the last month,” Pickett continued. “There is fifty percent more stimulus spending in the pipeline now than there was one month ago.”

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