Statement by the Vice President on New CBO Report on Employment and Economic Impact of the Recovery Act

Vice President Joe Biden today issued the following statement on a new report from the Congressional Budget Office on the employment and economic impact of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act:

This new analysis from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office is further confirmation of what we've been hearing from leading economists, the nation's governors and families across the country: the Recovery Act is working to rescue the economy from eight years of failed economic policy and rebuild it even stronger than before. When the CBO, Congress's top watchdog and an institution widely-respected on both sides of the aisle, says that because of the Recovery Act as many as 3.3 million Americans are on the job today and the unemployment rate is as much as 1.8 percent lower, it's impossible for even the most cynical, bent-on-rooting-for-failure critics to deny. So while Republicans in Congress – the same party that got us into this mess in the first place - may want to turn back the clock and drive us back into the same ditch we're making our way out of, it's now clearer than ever before that we can't afford to go backward; we have to keep moving forward and build on measures like the Recovery Act that are creating jobs and making us competitive in the 21st century economy.