“Big Cat Fight” May Be Understated. This From Carly Fiorina:

Boxer Bites – Where Are The Jobs, Barbara?

Barbara Boxer has spent a lot of time running around California on her rare, election year-driven trips out from Washington touting all the “jobs” she says have been created by the economic “stimulus” plan. In fact, today she’s headed to Riverside to tout “job creation.” Since she clearly didn’t check the facts before scheduling her bogus press conference today, we did – call it a public service. And, guess what? In Riverside County alone, the unemployment rate has risen two percentage points since the stimulus passed.

Unemployment In Riverside County Has Risen to 14.3 Percent From 12.3 Percent.

It is particularly ironic that Barbara Boxer uses construction sites and government projects as her backdrop to tout these “miracle recoveries,” because the construction sector has been decimated as a result of bad policy and a sputtering economy. In California, employment in the construction industry is down more than 18 percent since February 2009. And nationwide, the unemployment rate in the construction industry is more than double the overall unemployment rate.

Construction Jobs In California Dropped From 676,200 In February 2009 to 553,800 in April 2010.

1.7 Million Construction Workers Across The Nation Are Unemployed, And The Unemployment Rate In The Construction Industry Stands At 20.1 Percent. By now, we should probably have learned our lesson that Boxer simply cannot back up her claims with the numbers. After all, back in January, the Associated Press released an analysis showing that the stimulus has not lowered unemployment rates to date. And despite its cost and spending surge on infrastructure, the stimulus’s effect on the construction industry and economy have been minimal.

Highway Projects Provide The Backdrops For Political Press Conferences But Haven’t Necessarily Helped The Unemployment Picture. “Highway projects have been the public face of the president’s recovery efforts, providing the backdrop for news conferences with workers who owe their paychecks to the stimulus. But those anecdotes have not added up to a national trend and have not markedly improved the country’s broad employment picture.”

AP: “Local Unemployment Rates Rose And Fell Regardless Of How Much Stimulus Money Washington Poured Out For Transportation.” “Spend a lot or spend nothing at all, it didn’t matter, the AP analysis showed: Local unemployment rates rose and fell regardless of how much stimulus money Washington poured out for transportation, raising questions about Obama’s argument that more road money would address an ‘urgent need to accelerate job growth.’”

Although Barbara Boxer claimed the $862 billion for the economic stimulus plan would bring “help and hope,” in fact, 2.25 million Americans have lost their jobs in just the last 15 months.

So today, our question to Barbara Boxer is, “Where are the jobs you say have been created?”

We certainly cannot seem to find them. And for the millions of unemployed Californians, that bites.

As always, the Carly for California team can be reached at pressoffice@carlyforca.com or at (916) 551-1383.

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