From the office of House Republican Leader John Boehner:

Today’s announcement that the unemployment rate hit a 26-year high of 9.4 percent demonstrates how much middle-class families, small businesses, and workers are struggling during one of the worst economic downturns in decades.  This figure is particularly noteworthy because the President’s chief economist, Dr. Christina Romer, claimed that the jobless rate would only hit nine percent if Washington failed to pass the trillion-dollar stimulus spending bill.  Instead, the Democrats’ widely-panned “stimulus” has not only loaded unprecedented debt onto our children and grandchildren, it also has failed to meet its most basic economic goals.  Is it any wonder why Vice President Biden admitted this week that people “are being scammed already” by the “stimulus”?

Let’s take a look at some of the claims made by Washington Democrats about the “stimulus” and how they stack up, particularly in light of the latest unemployment figures:

CLAIM: “The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act targets investments towards key areas that will save or create good jobs immediately….” (“Where Is Your Money Going?” Recovery.Gov, Accessed 4/1/09)

FACT: The economy has lost more than 2.5 million jobs since the Democrats’ stimulus took effect.

CLAIM: The Administration claimed in January that if Congress failed to pass the trillion dollar stimulus that the unemployment rate would go above 9 percent, and that it would never top eight percent if the stimulus became law.

FACT: Today the Labor Department announced that the unemployment rate hit 9.4 percent.

CLAIM: Last week in Nevada, the President repeated his assertion that the stimulus has “saved or created nearly 150,000 jobs."

FACT: According to ABC News: “But the truth is, even the Obama administration isn’t able to say for sure how many jobs the stimulus is saving and/or creating.  No one is able to even say how many of the projects approved by the administration have even begun, because ‘it’s such a moving target,’ Jared Bernstein, Biden’s top economic adviser, said on ABCNews.com’s ‘Top Line’ last week.”

CLAIM: President Obama said last week that, “[o]ne hundred days later, we’re already seeing results.”

FACT: According to the New York Daily News earlier this week, Vice President Biden said that the stimulus isn’t working yet: “You’re really going to start to see things change in the second hundred days. You're going to see this thing begin to move.”  The Vice President’s statement is supported by the fact that only “5%, of the total $787 billion plan had been spent,” according to the Wall Street Journal, and that, as of two weeks ago, “99.7 percent” of money allocated to the Transportation Department remains unspent, according to the Washington Post.

The stimulus has massively increased the size and scope of our federal deficit, but it has hardly produced the jobs Washington Democrats promised.  It hasn’t produced jobs immediately.  And it hasn’t “saved or created nearly 150,000 jobs.”  Don’t struggling middle-class families and small businesses deserve better?