When President Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act into law on February 17, 2009, the program’s place in American history was widely remarked. It was the greatest stimulus effort since Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal.

But this was incorrect: By every measure, Obama’s stimulus was far greater than FDR’s New Deal.

Under President Obama’s tenure official unemployment rose to around 9 percent and has stayed there for roughly 28 months. Not surprisingly, years of persistently bad economic conditions while the country was lead by a Democratic president (who had a Congress controlled by Democrats for two years) leaves Americans seriously questioning the Democratic Party’s ability to foster prosperity in this country.

Their irresponsible position is that corporations and billionaires should not have to share the sacrifices needed to keep our economy on track for recovery. That is why they vehemently oppose efforts to cut corporate welfare and to eliminate subsidies for the oil companies. Unlike most Americans, who believe we should pull together to find real solutions, these politicians are intent on dividing Americans by destroying programs that have broad public support. At the same time, they have done all in their power to create instability in the economy and put more Americans out of work.

The stimulus actually proves the point that only job creation will balance the budget while contractionary measures won’t; more Democrats should be crowing about the stimulus, while insisting that more gets done. It’s a tricky two-step, but also a necessary one.

McCain and Coburn gave what they hope is a gullible media a list of the 100 worst projects funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), also known as the “stimulus” Act. But every project on that list is likely better than what they want to do with the same money.

We learn from this poll that people support government spending to create jobs, even if it requires ignoring the deficit in the short term. We also know from political science that increasing employment and average disposable income really helps the party in power politically.