WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama is heading to Jacksonville, Florida, to tout the benefits of the massive spending bill he signed shortly after taking office seven years ago.
Obama pumped more than $760 billion into a then-slumping national economy in an attempt to halt the worst economic downturn in generations.
Critics, including congressional Republicans who voted against the Recovery Act, argue that taxpayers got too little in return for such a substantial investment. The bill cleared Congress in 2009 with scant backing from Republican lawmakers.
In Jacksonville on Friday, Obama is visiting a factory owned by Saft, which makes high-tech batteries. The company won a $95.5 million Recovery Act grant it used to build the lithium-ion battery plant.
The Recovery Act invested heavily in clean-energy technologies.
