The Obama White House won’t be sending a witness to defend the economic-stimulus package before a House Oversight Committee panel Wednesday. The committee is holding a hearing on the impact of the stimulus package, which President Barack Obama signed almost two years ago. Testimony will come from a lineup of conservative economists, plus Josh Bivens of the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, who was picked by committee Democrats.
Rep. Jim Jordan (R., Ohio), who is running the hearing, had asked Jared Bernstein and Christina Romer, who played major roles in preparing the package to testify or suggest another witness to represent the White House. Both declined.
Officials volunteered to send witnesses from the Transportation and Commerce departments but the offers were turned down.
Ms. Romer, formerly the head of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, returned to her teaching job at the University of California, Berkeley, last year. Mr. Bernstein remains the chief economic adviser to Vice President Joe Biden.
Republicans say that they plan to use the hearing to examine the effects of the stimulus plan on the economy “and how its results compare to projections made by administration officials.” GOP staff said that they didn’t think that witnesses from individual federal departments would be able to answer these questions.
The plan, which has a current estimated price tag of $814 billion, is considered by Democrats to be one of their signature achievements during Barack Obama’s first two years in office. Mr. Bernstein and Ms. Romer have credited it with preserving up to 3.7 million jobs, compared with what would have happened otherwise.
But Republicans have questioned how the White House reached those figures, and have argued that the stubbornly high unemployment rate shows that the plan was a costly failure.
Public perceptions of the package have been dismal and during the November midterm elections, many GOP candidates ran on a platform of criticizing the stimulus effort, while Democrats barely mentioned it.
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