On the recordJune 17, 2010
once again, we are here today to try to help create jobs. That is what the underlying bill and substitute amendment are all about. But the Thune amendment would move in the wrong direction. Instead of helping to create jobs, the Thune amendment would probably cost jobs. The Thune amendment would reduce aggregate demand in the economy by more than $50 billion. Instead of continuing the good that the Recovery Act has done, the Thune amendment would stop it in its tracks. The Recovery Act is working. This is what the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said in its most recent report: CBO estimates that in the first quarter of calendar year 2010, [the Recovery Act's] policies: Raised the level of real . . . gross domestic product . . . by between 1.7 percent and 4.2 percent; Lowered the unemployment rate by between 0.7 percentage points and 1.5 percentage points; Increased the number of people employed by between 1.2 million and 2.8 million; and Increased the number of full-time-equivalent jobs by 1.8 million to 4.1 million compared with what those amounts would have been otherwise.
