create or save 3.5 million jobs over the next two years. there s no shortage of words or speakers on behalf of the federal stimulus. on its one-year anniversary looks who s talking about it today. at least six stimulus-related events across the country, not to mention the president himself who s set to talk in just a few minutes. let s get straight to dan lothian live in washington. the administration touting the benefits of the stimulus but still there s a lot of critics out there. reporter: there realize. you ve heard from from republicans who believed it was a waste of money and had not lived up to the promise of creating millions of jobs. there is skepticism among the american people as well n a recent cnn poll conducted last month, 36% of americans felt that the money did not help the economy at all. about 63% felt that the projects included in the stimulus were for political reasons and did not benefit the economy. so this is something that there s a lot of skepticism, but
because the recovery act made it possible. so our work is far from over, but we have rescued this economy from the worst of this crisis and slowly the new factories and research facilities and small businesses, the american people are rebuilding a better future and we will continue to support their efforts, we will leave our children an economy that is stronger and more prosperous than it was before. thank you very much, everybody. all right, the president of the united states one year after he signed the stimulus act into law. we ve been talking so much about the recovery and reimbursement act, where the money is going, the critics that are still out there saying it s not enough, it s too much, it s been wasted. we ll continue to discuss it, obviously, but one year in. we ll see how it goes from here. we ll be right back. it s a motion line of furniture that conforms to your body and supports your head, neck, and back
merits. and despite that, i was still concerned, joe and i were just talking in the back, when this thing passed, we said $787 billion, somewhere there s going to be some story of some money that ended up being misspent. $787 billion spent out over 18 months. that s a lot. that s a lot of money. and it is a testimony to vice president biden and his team that as joe puts it, the dog so far at least hasn t barked. this team has done an outstanding job overseeing the recovery act. it doesn t mean that everything has been perfect, but when you think about the scope, the magnitude of this thing, this program is run cleanly, smoothly, transparentally. we brought in one of the
to keep their jobs as well as tens of thousands of cops and firefighters and first responders and correctional officers. and joe biden will tell you that not one of the 50 governors we ve spoken to, democrat or republican, has failed to show appreciation for this relief. and i also have to tell you that i am concerned, because state budgets have not yet recovered, and you re now seeing a whole bunch of state and local governments who were able to put off layoffs last year as the recovery money is running out having to make some very tough decisions, and we could potentially see layoffs taking place this year because we haven t reupped in terms of providing some help to those states and local governments. that s something that we re watching and we re concerned about. now, the last third of the recovery act is what i want to talk a little bit about more today. that s the reason blake and doug are here.
take a look here, cbo says anywhere between 800,000 and 2.4 million jobs could be attributed to the stimulus. when you look at that, that s a giant spread there. i mean we re talking about this versus triple it. how are they deciding this? all they can do is estimate which is why none of those figures are ultimately that specific. now, we have some video because i do want to point out, look, it is a hard fact, some people are working because of the stimulus. we ve been reporting on this at the stimulus desk reportedly. there are groups out there that are using money to pay for stimulus jobs. in fact recently the latest report on recovery.gov recipients said they funded jobs. they did not have to say they would never have had those jobs if it wasn t for the stimulus. that s why this gets complicated. i want to show you another side. there s a quote from the heritage foundation, a conservative think tank that have openly opposed the stimulus. they are arguing that overall it has not impr