CY Fair-Sun: Culberson, Mccaul Ask: Where Are Stimulus Jobs?

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CY Fair-Sun: Culberson, Mccaul Ask: Where Are Stimulus Jobs?

Spurred by Continental's announcement the Houston airline will likely slash 1,700 jobs and Houston area job losses reached a new high not seen since 1987, local Republicans are asking where the stimulus money has gone to help create jobs.

On the House floor Tuesday Cypress area Congressman, U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Austin, said government is asleep at the wheel and it's time for the American people to wake up.

"We need to be cutting taxes and spending which has historically worked, instead of enacting policies that will devastate our economy," McCaul said of the proposed national energy tax bill "cap and trade" and healthcare reform legislation in Congress.

U.S. House of Representatives U.S. Rep. John Culberson, R-Houston, said the federal government needs to quit spending and cut taxes in order to create jobs.

"We fiscal conservatives understand its common sense," Culberson said in his testimony July 21. "To create jobs, cut taxes."

He said the bulk of the job creation from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, commonly referred to as the economic stimulus, is in government in the nation's capitol not in local districts.

"The liberal leadership in the House and this Congress is (using) our hard earned tax dollars and they are redistributing the wealth and creating jobs in D.C., creating jobs in the government and out in Nancy Pelosi land," he said.

While the impacts of the recession have been slower in Texas and the greater Houston area than other parts of the United States, numbers released July 17 by the Texas Workforce Commission showed an increase in the unemployment rate, 7.5 percent in June. Unemployment was at 7.1 percent in May.

In the Houston-Sugar Land-Baytown metro region, unemployment was recorded at 8 percent in June. During the same period in last year, unemployment rates were only 5 percent in greater Houston.

While the commission notes the state shuttered 266,300 jobs in the last 12 months and the national unemployment rate of 9.5 percent, the Obama administration maintains the stimulus will create or save 3 million jobs nationwide.

According to the federal government's recovery website, www.recovery.gov, the Lone Star state has recieved$16.5 billion in stimulus funds, but tracking the projects and consequently the number of possible jobs created is more difficult.

One of the biggest job producers to have an immediate impact was the much touted shovel-ready transportation projects.

Texas received $2.6 billion for road projects.

The Texas Department of Transportation calculates these projects will create 69,000 new jobs, with 23,000 jobs from stimulus funding.

Harris County could see as many as 28 different projects scheduled by 2010, according to a list on the TxDOT web site.

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