After Stonewalling Obama’s Jobs Package, Republicans Complain About GDP Growth

THINK PROGRESS

New data released today shows that the U.S. economy grew by 1.5 percent last quarter, following a revised increase of 2 percent in the first quarter. Republicans, of course, leaped on the middling number, with Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH) calling it “a troubling sign for the future of our economy.”

But GOP’ers neglect to mention that they repeatedly filibustered President Obama’s American Jobs Act in the Senate, after several independent economic analysts estimated that the bill would boost GDP by one to three percent.

– Goldman Sachs economists estimated that the AJA would increase GDP by 1.5 percent, before any multiplier effects.
– Thomas Lam, of the economic advisory firm OSK-DMG, estimated that the bill would boost GDP by 1.8 percent.
– Macroeconomic Advisers estimated that the boost would be 1.3 percent.
– Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Economy, put the boost at 2 percent of GDP.
– The Economic Policy Institute estimated that the new initiatives in the AJA would increase GDP by 1.9 percent, while policy extensions it included would increase GDP by another 1.4 percent.

The Congressional Budget Office also scored the bill as a net deficit reducer over a ten year budget window. As ThinkProgress has detailed, blocking the AJA is hardly the only thing that the GOP has done to sabotage economic growth and job creation.