Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) slammed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which President Barack Obama signed into law five years ago on Monday.
In a video posted to YouTube on Monday, Rubio says the stimulus "clearly failed."
“If you recall five years ago, the notion was that if the government spent all this money -- that, by the way, was borrowed-- that somehow the economy would begin to grow and create jobs. Well, of course, it clearly failed,” Rubio said. “Five years later, underemployment is still too high, the number of people that have dropped out of the workforce is astounding, unemployment remains stubbornly high and our economy isn’t growing fast enough -- proof that massive government spending, particularly debt spending, is not the solution to our economic growth problems.”
Rubio said "a vibrant free enterprise economy" would have been a better solution than the stimulus.
“That’s what our policymakers should be focused on -- policies that bring our Tax Code, our regulations and our massive $17 trillion debt under control,” Rubio said. “Sadly, that’s not what we’re getting from the White House, that’s not what we’re getting from this administration.”
Rubio wasn't the only Republican to hurl criticism at Obama on Monday -- Sens. John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Ted Cruz (R-Texas) also expressed their disappointment.
The White House defended the stimulus against GOP criticism, saying in a new report that the bill, among other things, saved or created an average of 1.6 million jobs a year between 2009 and 2012, according to the AP.
Watch a video of Rubio's remarks below.
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