Poll: Public Supports Stimulus Provisions

As Congress considers new jobs legislation, a new poll shows a large majority of the public supports the basic provisions of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

The latest CNN poll, taken in mid-January, shows four of five Americans (80 percent) favor government spending on roads and bridges, and 83 percent approve of aid to unemployed workers. Seven in 10 support the idea of spending some of the stimulus money on tax cuts, and 62 percent think it’s a good idea to increase spending on mass transit projects. Check out the poll results here.

And there is growing evidence that the stimulus strategy is working. The Washington Post reported over the weekend that the administration’s economic stimulus program created nearly 600,000 jobs in the past three months of 2009.

Many of those jobs were created as workers were hired to rebuild our nation’s infrastructure and work on jobs that need to be done, both key elements in the AFL-CIO’s five-point plan to create jobs.

The Obama administration also has adopted another of the AFL-CIO proposals: to create jobs by using some of the remaining bank rescue money to help community and local banks lend to small businesses on Main Street.

Traveling in New Hampshire today to push his campaign for more jobs, President Obama announced a proposal to use $30 billion in funds from the bank bailout program, the Toxic Assets Relief Program (TARP), for small businesses. The proposal would use some remaining TARP money to invest in community banks to encourage them to lend to small businesses.

Workers across the nation understand the need to create jobs and are rallying behind the AFL-CIO plan. Says Christie Brady, a member of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 934 in Kingsport, Tenn. (see video above):

It’s been a very devastating turn of events for a lot of people here in Tennessee [with] plant closings and everyone who has been affected by the closings….We need to get more jobs brought back here for our people.

While the stimulus package seems to be working, it is not enough alone, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said. Speaking on “Bill Moyers Journal” recently, Trumka said there is a lot of anger and frustration in the country and the best way to address that anger is a jobs bill.

We lost 8 million jobs, plus we have 2 million that we needed for growth. So, we’re 10 million jobs in the hole. In order to do that, it’s going to take more than a little stimulus package or a little jobs bill.