To argue that the dysfunction of the federal government is purely a Republican issue would be naïve. Long unable to move forward on Democratic legislation, the new Congressional majority of 2009 was quick to let loose and take advantage of a Democratic executive branch.

The ARRA was the first significant legislation to wear the stamp of a Congress controlled by Democrats. Although it has been successful, in spite of Republican spin, one has to wonder how effective it might have been if more keenly honed to address directly the specific issue of job creation. It’s true that it included $288 billion in tax relief that cut the tax bills of 95% of Americans, and that it also sent $224 billion to aid the states and pin up Medicaid and unemployment insurance. But the $275 billion that went to direct investment was not, like the other portions, intended to sustain current spending and break the fall. It was allocated for the express purpose of creating jobs.

It is within this direct investment component of the stimulus that the Democrats established their most resounding successes, but unfortunately it also exhibits their most disappointing failures. There’s little room for legitimate complaint about the $90 billion allocated for clean energy or the $20 billion that will fund the digitizing of medical records. Both of these programs will pay dividends to American taxpayers far into the future. But the vast sum of grant money distributed into the black hole of government gives cause for concern and lends substance to the Republican argument that Democrats are all about bigger government.

Though the data is not coded to ease such extraction, a brief analysis of the information provided for download at http://www.recovery.gov/ reveals some interesting facts. The data representing all allocations through the end of June includes 347,915 awards of contracts, grants and loans, totaling $237 billion. Interestingly, a query of the data looking for “recipients” with a name that includes “school” or “education” finds 59,916 awards totaling $47 billion. Similarly, a search of “college” or “university” nets 26,047 awards for nearly $17 billion. Looking for funding that went to cities, a query of “city of” returns 16,364 award and another $17 billion; counties apparently received on the order of $12 billion, state departments of transportation around $19 billion, and other state departments and housing authorities close to $20 billion more.

All told, on the order of $131 billion appears to have gone to government organizations. This is not to say that none of this funding found its way into the private sector, or that thousands of private sector jobs were not created. Many of these government agencies, from school districts to transportation departments, maintain a practice of subcontracting to industry vendors. But once the money is fed into the bureaucratic machine, suspicion arises, and rightfully so. Such practice is viewed as more SNAFU (Situation Normal All Fouled Up) because accountability and transparency are severely obscured. The result is that both the motivation and effectiveness of the investments is appropriately called into question.

Fortunately for Republicans, not long after the Stimulus, the Democrats lost their filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. From that point on, steadfast Republican obstruction has reigned supreme over timid Democratic initiative. As stated above, the Republicans, without doubt, deserve their share of the blame in this, but if not for the Democrat’s extreme lack of intestinal fortitude, much more meaningful legislation could have been passed. From healthcare to finance reform, the Democrats have allowed themselves to be bullied, never once requiring the filibustering Republicans to actually stand up and control the floor of the Senate. Instead, each time they compromised and produced diluted legislation of questionable worth.

In the end, the most well defined accomplishment of our near completely dysfunctional Congress is a starkly polarized populace. Americans on both sides of the debate blame the other. The Tea Party blindly carries the banner of smaller government and continues to grow in its numbers, railing against an ineffective government but upholding positions that only promise to make it more so. When will we learn?

Government is not the enemy, but the sorry excuse in Washington sure is. The solutions are before us, but the path we’ve chosen, through two political parties that fight harder for control than for the wellbeing of the nation is leading us to destruction. The American people need to wake up, to refuse to listen to anymore political rhetoric and to start asking more intelligent questions. America doesn’t need smaller government, nor does it need larger — it needs effective government, and it needs it now.

Whether you’re conservative or liberal, Republican, Democrat, or Libertarian, there’s one thing upon which most people will agree: our federal government is broken. The American economy crashed in 2008, and though the experts say that the Great Recession has officially passed, most people would beg to differ. The sad truth is that most Americans were hurt in the collapse; they either lost wealth or income or both. Now, two long years later, far too many people are still struggling and waiting for a dysfunctional government to implement effective solutions.

The National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) reported on Monday that the most severe recession since the Great Depression had ended in June of last year. The NBER made their determination based on several economic indicators, including total output and industrial production. The facts, according to the Economic Cycle Research Institute (ECRI), are that we’ve now regained 69% of the GDP and 38% of sales. The problem is that only 9% of private sector jobs have returned.

As of the end of August, national unemployment was still stuck at 9.6% and the broader U-6 rate, which includes the underemployed, was at 16.7%. So, it doesn’t take a psychologist to understand that with nearly 15 million unemployed Americans, people are justifiably angry with a government that was able to restore the banks, but seems unfazed itself and unable to help the average citizen.

With the 2010 midterm elections now only six weeks away, this sense of anger toward what’s perceived as an ineffective and self-serving federal government is what’s feeding public opinion. Wall Street brought down the economy, but they’re doing fine. Washington set the stage for the collapse, sat idly while it occurred and has not yet brought back the wealth or employment that was taken from the middle and working classes. Is the federal government culpable? Absolutely — but Americans would be well served to recall the depths of the pit from which we’re trying to crawl.

Although the recession that “ended” last June officially started in December of 2007, by the end of July 2008, unemployment was at a comparatively low 5.7%, with total job loss for the year of 463,000.  Then in September, Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy and the freefall began. By October all lending had stopped; the GDP was down 6%; job loss totaled 1.7 million, global trade collapsed, and net household worth had dropped by $5 trillion.

President Bush signed the $700 billion Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP) into law in October, and although it did feed the thieves behind the housing crash, it could very well have prevented the 25% unemployment levels that hit in the 1930s. But TARP or not, when President Obama took office, the economy was hemorrhaging nearly 600,000 jobs per month, and total job loss for 2008 had been recalculated at 3 million.

The new administration was desperate to enact measures to prevent further economic decay, but with interest rates nearly at zero percent, monetary policy had already been exhausted. So, in response, President Obama championed the only course of action still available to the federal government — a stimulus.

It was one month into the new Democratic administration, the economy was in dire straits, and the number of jobs lost each month was still increasing. The federal government needed to act, so a stimulus spending plan was quickly formed, and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) was passed by Congress and signed into law on February 16. Sadly, a sign of things to come, the legislation was passed without a single Republican vote in the House and only three in the Senate. The most partisan period in contemporary politics had begun.

Next: Broken Government — Republican Sabotage

Everybody you talk to has an opinion about the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009, better known as the Stimulus. Enacted in February of 2009, the program was intended to shore up short term consumer spending, provide aid to states and invest in projects to create jobs. With a total price tag originally estimated to be $787 billion, the Stimulus was originally supported by 51% of Americans, but a year and a half later, only 29% believed that it had actually helped the economy.

A Rasmussen Reports poll taken in July showed that not only did so few Americans believe the Stimulus had helped, but that 43% believed that it hurt the economy. That same poll revealed that 69% of those surveyed believed tax cuts were a better way to create jobs than more government spending. Without doubt, these attitudes are reason for concern, but they fall far short of telling the whole story.

Things actually get much more confusing when the results of a Gallup poll taken in June are also considered. The survey asked people if they would be in favor of Congress passing legislation to “Approve additional government spending to create jobs and stimulate the economy,” and 60% of those polled answered in the affirmative with only 38% in opposition.

So, 60% of Americans support more stimulus spending, but 43% believe that what was spent through July had actually hurt the economy, and 69% believe tax cuts would create more jobs. What can explain this incongruence?

The answer is likely found in the American proclivity to swallow political talking points without any verification of facts. A revealing example of this dynamic concerns the Obama tax cuts offered through the Stimulus. A CBS News/New York Times poll conducted in February of this year showed that 24% of respondents believed that Obama had increased taxes, while only 13% believed they had been reduced. Amongst Tea Partiers, only 2% believed taxes had decreased under Obama, and a whopping 44% believed they had increased. The opinions evinced in these polls have nothing to do with the reality that the Stimulus included 25 different tax cuts that benefitted 95% of all Americans.

Sadly, voter opinion seems to track much more closely to political rhetoric than anything substantive or factual. Republicans have consistently spread the message that Obama will raise people’s taxes, therefore people believe that he has. They’ve also espoused the position that tax cuts best stimulate the economy, and although the vast majority of economists believe tax cuts to be the worst form of economic stimulus, a majority of Americans adhere to the conservative falsehood.

This dynamic seems also to be at the root of public opinion regarding the Stimulus. Arguably the Obama administration’s most successful program to date, it has been credited by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) with adding as much as 4.5% to the GDP and increasing the number of people employed by between 1.4 and 3.3 million. According to Mark Zandi, former economic advisor to John McCain, unemployment would be 11.5% instead of 9.5% without the Stimulus. But still 43% of Americans believe the Stimulus has hurt the economy.

The stimulus has paid out 77% of the $288 billion in tax relief, but only 64% of the $224 billion in entitlement funds, with direct investment funds trailing still further. Thus far, barely 54% of the $275 billion slated for contracts and grants has been paid, mostly because of the long lead times resulting from a shortage of “shovel-ready” projects. But as the projects ramp up, the real promise for future jobs, new industries, lower healthcare costs, more efficient government and improved energy independence will all begin to materialize.

More than $23 billion in contracts, grants and loans has come to California, funding over 18,000 awards. One major project right here in Contra Costa County is the fourth bore on the Caldecott Tunnel. Nearly $200 million was allocated to Caltrans for the project that would not have proceeded without the ARRA. In addition, direct local funding within Contra Costa County has funded 46 contracts and 252 grants totaling nearly $300 million. Investments include $43 million for transportation, $22 million for public safety, $14 million for energy, $126 million for education and more funding to assist with health and human services, housing, labor, technology and water/environment. Together, these projects have created nearly 500 new jobs, saved many times that amount and promise to create more as projects move forward.

Unfortunately, the Stimulus success stories are not what most people are fed through the media. Unless an individual happens to be working on a Stimulus funded project, their opinion is likely shaped by the spurious claims levied by its political opponents. People like House Minority Leader, John Boehner and half-term Alaska Governor, Sarah Palin have made it a practice to disparage the Stimulus without any facts to back their claims.  Republican Senators John McCain (R-AZ) and Tom Coburn (R-OK) even went so far as to create a list of “wasteful” Stimulus projects that was more a waste of time to create or read than anything else.

The Stimulus could have been more effective. There’s little doubt that money could have been better directed to achieve maximum job creation, but to say that the entire program “has gotten us nowhere,” as John Boehner stated recently, is nothing short of a bald-faced lie. The Republican obstructionists have succeeded in using deception and distortion to convince American citizens that stimulus spending is ineffective and that tax cuts are a preferred option. Both economic theory and American history say otherwise.

The Stimulus has raised the number of full-time-equivalent (FTE) jobs by as many as 4.8 million. It is also creating new export industries, moving our nation forward with alternative energy and laying the foundation for lower healthcare costs and more efficient government. The most significant issue with the Stimulus is that it was too small, and the national conversation should now be focused on a second wave. But instead we toil with Republican subterfuge and self-serving delay.

Wake up America! Those who criticize the Stimulus, raise concerns about the deficit and at the same time fight for tax cuts for the super-rich, don’t give a care about your wellbeing. Open your eyes and see them for what they are — Republicans.