Almost 4 months ago, Congress passed Barack Obama’s so-called “Stimulus Bill” that promised to speed our economic recovery and add 3 million new jobs by the end of 2010. No Republicans in the House voted for the bill, seeing it for what it was: a massive increase in national debt that would weaken our economy further and do very little to actually stimulate growth. But our Democrat representative voted the party line as directed by Nancy Pelosi and the Democrat leadership in Congress.

So now that the bill’s been signed into law and money is beginning to flow to states for local use, how are we faring? As it turns out, not too well.

We’ve lost almost 3 million jobs already in 2009 and unemployment is at a 26-year high. It’s a sad state of affairs when the best news we can celebrate is that we lost fewer jobs than some economist expected (which means only losing 350,000 jobs; hardly good news).

Actually, it’s even worse. The rarely reported “underemployment” number, which includes those who are out of work but seeking jobs, those who have recently given up looking for jobs, and those who are working part-time but seeking full-time work, is at an alltime high of 16.4%. That means 1 out of every 6 working-age Americans is out of work or not able to find the work hours they need.

The truth is, no member of Congress should have voted for the so-called “Stimulus Bill.” None of them had even read it, much less understood that increased government borrowing and spending on pork projects and public-sector make-work jobs would do more harm than good. There are responsible things Congress can do to help ease our economic situation, but this was far from responsible. And our congressman wouldn’t stand up to those in his party who invented this devastating scheme.

More good information about the jobs situation is available here, here and here.