Stimulus Creates 150,000 Jobs In California

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Obama's Stimulus and Recovery Act created 150,000 jobs for unemployed Californians in addition to thousands of jobs saved that would have otherwise resulted in layoff and eliminated positions. Today on ABC’s This Week, host Terry Moran noted the Republican Party’s staunch opposition to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act that Congress passed last year and added that “it was summed up by Mitt Romney at the CPAC convention this week.” “[President Obama] scared employers,” Romney said. “So jobs were scarce.

His nearly trillion dollar stimulus created not one net new job in the private sector.” In response to Romney's disconnect with reality, Republican California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger called out the GOP for thier wanton hypocrisy:

SCHWARZENEGGER: I find it interesting that you have a lot of Republicans running around pushing back on the stimulus money and saying this doesn’t create any new jobs. Then they go out and they do the photo ops and they’re posing with the big checks and they say, “Isn’t this great?”

Schwarzenegger then railed against his GOP colleagues for playing politics with the stimulus bill and attacked them for claiming it didn’t create jobs:

SCHWARZENEGGER: Anyone that says it hasn’t created a job, they should talk to the 150,000 people that have been getting jobs in California.
MORAN: In the private sector?

SCHWARZENEGGER: In the private sector and from the public sector. … So I’m happy that we got this money. I’m happy that we have put 150,000 people to work and there will be more people that are put to work because of it.
Watch it:



Throughout the past year, many GOP members of Congress who voted against the stimulus have been touting the money that it has delivered to their states or districts. From one side of thier mouth, they paint the stimulus as a failure and from the other side of their mouth they offer a few ambigous words while delivering large cardboard checks to municipalities at home as if they somehow took part in the process that made the much needed funds a reality.

A new research report released last week found that over half of the Republican caucus — 110 lawmakers from the House and Senate — are guilty of this stimulus hypocrisy.

Federal Stimulus Helps LA School Close $140 Mil Budget Cuts

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Los Angeles Unified officials said they can make up for a recent $140 million cut in state funding by using federal stimulus money - but they'll feel the pinch next year.

The $140 million cut, the equivalent of closing seven high schools, follows Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's weekend veto of a bill that would have temporarily retained special funding for school districts that serve low-performing students.

Those funds, totalling $400 million statewide, were initially taken away in July by lawmakers who argued the school districts could use stimulus money to make up the difference.

While LAUSD plans to use stimulus money this year to cover the $140 million cut, officials say they might have to accelerate cuts that are not budgeted to hit for another two years.

"This is a crisis averted but delayed," said Megan Reilly, LAUSD's chief financial officer.

"It creates a bigger hole for us next year."

The cut could mean that the elimination of full-day kindergarten and arts and music classes - or further increasing class sizes across the board - could come as early as next year rather than in the 2011-12 school year.

In justifying his veto of Senate Bill 84, designed to delay the $400 million in cuts to low-performing school districts, Schwarzenegger said districts could use some $355 million in accelerated stimulus money to cover virtually the entire shortfall.

California Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown Investigates ACORN

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California - Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown has launched an investigation into the brouhaha over videotapes of a conservative group’s private sting operation against ACORN, the community organizing group credited with helping push Barack Obama to the presidency.

Brown’s office plans to look into circumstances surrounding both the making of the videos and what they reputedly show: ACORN members giving advice on how to open a brothel.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger asked Brown to investigate the videos in a letter two weeks ago.

Chief Deputy Atty. Gen. James M. Humes replied that an investigation has been opened

“of both ACORN and the circumstances under which ACORN employees were videotaped.”
It is illegal under state law to tape someone without his or her permission.

“We’re going to look at the tapes, we’re going to follow the facts without fear or favor, and we’re going to see where it takes us,” said Scott Gerber, a Brown spokesman.

Talk radio and TV have been abuzz for weeks over the hidden-camera videotapes, purportedly shot at ACORN offices in Washington, San Diego and San Bernardino. They show a couple posing as a pimp and prostitute being advised on how to set up a prostitution business.

“I am outraged and deeply concerned by these allegations,” Schwarzenegger said in a statement today.

“If these reports are true, they warrant prosecution under the fullest extent of the law.”

Members of ACORN, which stands for the Assn. of Community Organization for Reform Now, are already under investigation in several states for allegations of irregularities in registering voters before the 2008 presidential election.