CBO: In 4th Quarter, stimulus added up to 2.1m jobs, lowered UE rate 1.1%, grew economy 3.5% - and there's more to come

Jesus Christ. Okay, we've gone far beyond "the Republicans are lying" territory. Every newspaper and TV station in the country that covered Republicans claiming that the stimulus didn't create any jobs - that would be you, Scott Brown - needs to go back to those members of Congress and ask them what the hell they were talking about, and what they have to say now that we know the stimulus added up to 2.1m jobs to the economy, lowered the unemployment rate by up to 1.1%, and grew the economy by up to3.5%. That's huge. And, as Reuters notes, that's only in the last three months of 2009 - the bill passed before that, and we already have January and February of this year to add to it too:

The massive stimulus package passed last year to blunt the impact of the worst U.S. recession in 70 years created up to 2.1 million jobs in the last three months of 2009, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office said on Tuesday.

The package boosted the economy by up to 3.5 percent and lowered the unemployment rate by up to 2.1 percent during that period, CBO said.

Oh, and there's more coming:

The package is likely to have the greatest impact this year, according to CBO. It is expected to boost GDP by between 1.4 percent and 4 percent and bring down the unemployment rate by between 0.7 percent and 1.8 percent in 2010, higher figures than last year when many of its programs were being set up. The impact is expected to trail off over the next two years.

I just grabbed this chart from the CBO study. Of course there's only a slight mention in the study itself. After talking to some economists, they think the chart shows how many jobs in each quarter are attributable to the stimulus - but the quarters aren't cumulative. So at its peak, this year, the stimulus may create as much as 3.5m jobs.