What did Sherrod Brown say about the Brent Spence Bridge before Stimulus 1?

As we commented earlier, today President Obama made a campaign speech for a second "stimulus" bill on the Brent Spence Bridge in Cincinnati. He says that it is an example of a project that would be funded by the new bill. Of course, in our earlier post, we dispelled his notion that the bridge was a project that would start putting people to work anytime soon.

Making it worse, Obama is going to be speaking at a bridge over the Ohio River. He says his new stimulus jobs bill will renovate the bridge and provide much needed jobs to jump start the economy. You know, what his original stimulus bill was supposed to do, and didn't. But the facts are, that work on the bridge can't be started for at least four years from now. That's quite a different story than Obama has been telling us. He has been claiming that his "jobs bill" would "get the economy moving now."

At the end of our post, we also asked why our own Senator Sherrod Brown wasn't with the president today. He supports the president's plan, after all.

Could it be because of a claim he made on MSNBC's Morning Joe program before the first stimulus bill was passed? On January 28, 2009, he said the following on the program:

"We do need to do direct spending on job creation. That means shovel-ready projects for water and sewer systems, whether it's the Brent Spence Bridge in Cincinnati, that will put a lot of people to work and help with economic development."

Well, its getting close to three years later. And we know how that stimulus bill worked out. Close to a TRILLION dollars in additional deficit spending, and it didn't create the jobs, or the recovery, that Sherrod Brown promised. It was one huge failure.

Senator Sherrod Brown indicates how many jobs were created on the Brent Spence Bridge project he said would be started with the first stimulus bill. AFP/Getty Images/Brendan Smialowski

 So, maybe he didn't want to show up anywhere near the Brent Spence Bridge today because he had already told the people of the region once before, that a huge government spending program was going to start the project and put them to work.

It was probably a good idea that you stayed in Washington today, Senator.

UPDATE: Obviously, we added the video of Sherrod. Too bad that original stimulus money didn't go to the Brent Spence Bridge as Sherrod promised, and went to Solyndra instead. But at least the Solyndra part worked out a little bit for him, right Senator?

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