It certainly didn’t take five years to find out that the Obama stimulus plan of 2009 was a failure, at a cost of nearly a trillion dollars.

In January of 2009, when I voted against it, I said the Obama stimulus would fail at meaningful job creation and would increase the debt. We now know that it increased budget deficits by a staggering $830 billion, and that the real unemployment has remained in double digits.

Remember those White House promises that the stimulus would boost the economy, stimulate the creation of millions of jobs, and lift millions of people out of poverty? Instead, poverty has worsened, the economic recovery has dragged, and the unemployment rate is nearly 11%, accounting for all of the discouraged people who’ve dropped out of the workforce and the millions who can’t find full-time work.

We should not be content with this ‘new normal’ under President Obama. If the president wants to improve his abysmal record on jobs, he could start by approving the Keystone pipeline project.

Getting serious about tax reform, cutting back on the unending creation of new federal regulations, and reducing the size of government would all be positive steps that would unleash the private sector and restore economic growth.

Dr. John Fleming is Chairman of the Natural Resources Subcommittee on Fisheries, Wildlife, Oceans and Insular Affairs and is a member of the House Armed Services Committee. He is a physician and small business owner and represents the 4th Congressional District of Louisiana.