October 7, 2011 3:27PM 

# Now Why’d You Have to Go and Say That? 

By [Michael F. Cannon](https://www.cato.org/people/michael-f-cannon) 

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House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D‑CA) [says](http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/pelosi-says-unemployment-rate-would-have-hit-145-without-2009-stimulus_595131.html) of the 2009 stimulus bill *et alia*:

> Without the Recovery Act and accompanying federal interventions, whether from the Fed, or Cash for Clunkers, or other initiatives, the unemployment rate last year at the time of the election would have been fourteen and a half percent, not nine and a half percent.

The Obama administration [predicted](http://otrans.3cdn.net/45593e8ecbd339d074_l3m6bt1te.pdf) that if Congress didn’t enact the 2009 stimulus bill, then unemployment would hit 8.8 percent. They enacted it, and unemployment is now stuck at [9.1 percent](http://bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm).

So if history is any guide, Pelosi’s prediction means that the unemployment rate will soon exceed 14.5 percent. Thanks.

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