White house WASHINGTON — The Obama

administration, offering evidence that its much-maligned efforts to spur economic recovery have begun to take hold, estimated Tuesday that the $787 billion stimulus program saved or created 1.5 million to 2 million jobs during 2009.

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• These latest calculations by the White House Council of Economic Advisers are certain to be challenged by Republicans, but the employment and economic impact of the stimulus cited in the new report are generally in line with estimates by some leading private economists as well as the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO).

• "This is truly a stunning effect," Christina Romer, chairman of the president's Council of Economic Advisers, said in a conference call with reporters

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• She expressed confidence that the package of tax cuts and government spending — the largest of its kind in U.S. history — would ultimately fulfill Obama's promise to boost employment by 3.5 million jobs by the end of 2010. As of the end of last year, only one-third of the $787 billion package had been spent, although about one-half of the total has been used or committed.

• The report, mandated by Congress as part of the stimulus act and released late Tuesday, came as President Obama mounted a full-court press to defend his record on jobs, a major vulnerability for the White House and Democrats in Congress as they head into November's midterm elections with double-digit unemployment predicted for all or much of the coming year.

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• His is truly a stunning effect," Christina Romer, chairman of the president's Council of Economic Advisers, said in a conference call with reporters.

• She expressed confidence that the package of tax cuts and government spending — the largest of its kind in U.S. history — would ultimately fulfill Obama's promise to boost employment by 3.5 million jobs by the end of 2010.

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•  As of the end of last year, only one-third of the $787 billion package had been spent, although about one-half of the total has been used or committed.

• The report, mandated by Congress as part of the stimulus act and released late Tuesday, came as President Obama mounted a full-court press to defend his record on jobs, a major vulnerability for the White House and Democrats in Congress as they head into November's midterm elections with double-digit unemployment predicted for all or much of the coming year.

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• Even with the stimulus, the American economy lost more than 4 million jobs last year, including an additional 85,000 in December, according to Labor Department statistics. And the unemployment rate last month was 10 percent — a figure that is widely expected to inch higher in the months ahead.

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• In their first quarterly report to Congress on the stimulus, issued in September, White House economists estimated that the Recovery Act had raised employment levels by more than 1 million jobs as of the third quarter.

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• The new report reflects actual data submitted by stimulus recipients indicating they had created or saved 640,000 full-time-equivalent jobs as of the third quarter.

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• But the White House's estimate of stimulus-induced jobs for 2009 is based on economic modeling and projections, and as such, is likely to be met with considerable skepticism from Republicans and other critics who have questioned the methodology and documented cases in which stimulus money went to dubious projects.

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• Romer acknowledged that it was hard to make employment-creation claims when the economy has shed about 8 million jobs in the last two years.

• But she noted that job losses had declined dramatically since the first quarter, when they were approaching nearly 700,000 a month on average — far more than the approximately 69,000 a month lost during the fourth quarter of last year.

The White House

• The White House, located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., in Washington DC, has been the home of every U.S. president since John Adams. The presidential mansion is situated on some 18 acres (7.3 hectares) of land amid a parklike setting. The building’s main section measures 170 feet (52 meters) long and 85 feet (26 meters) deep. Its 2˝ stories are mounted on an English basement, which, because of the slope of land, becomes a ground floor, on the south side. Two wings flank the original structure. The West Wing was constructed in 1902, following a Congressional appropriation of $ 65,196. It contains the Oval (presidential) Office, the Roosevelt or staff meeting room, a reception room, and the Cabinet Room. French doors within the president’s office open onto the Rose Garden, which continues to follow the plan of an 18th century flower garden. The president regularly receives official visitors in the Rose Garden. The East Wing was built in 1942 and contains offices for presidential aids. The Jacqueline Kennedy Garden, so named by Mrs. Lyndon B. Johnson in honor of her predecessor, is off the East Wing and is used by the First Lady as a reception area.

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• Prior to 1902, the ground floor served as the president’s work area. This floor now features the Library, which was completely reorganized in 1962; the Vermeil or Gold Room, which serves as a display room as well as a ladies’ sitting room; the China or “Presidential Collection Room,” which includes a wide exhibit of White House China; the Diplomatic Reception Room, formerly a boiler room; and the Map Room, from which president Franklin Delano Roosevelt monitored the events of World War II.

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• Although the rooms of the first (state) floor have been refurbished many times over the years, the floor has not changed architecturally since the White House was designed by John Hoban in 1792. The East Room, three reception rooms (the Green Room, Blue Room, and Red Room), the State Dining Room, and the Family Dining Room comprise the first floor. With the exception of the Family Dining Room, these rooms are open to the public. The East Room, called the “Public Audience Room” by Hoban, retains its classical stile of the early 19th century. It has been the scene of many White House dances, concerts, weddings, funerals, and bill-signing ceremonies. Gerald R. Ford took the oath of office in the East Room when he succeeded Richard M. Nixon as chief executive. The State Dining Room was originally much smaller and functioned as a drawing room, office, and cabinet room. The dining hall now can seat as many as 140 guests. The second floor includes the Queen’s Suite, formerly the Rose Guest Room and now a sitting room and bedroom; the Lincoln Bedroom, which was the office and the cabinet room of the 16th chief executive; the adjoining Lincoln Sitting Room; and the former Cabinet Room, which was designated the Treaty Room during the John Fitzgerald Kennedy administration to reflect the many important decisions made in it. The private quarters of the president and his family are located on the west end of the second floor. 

The History

• The History of the White House:

Construction of the White House was begun in 1792 after an architectural competition won by James Hoban, an Irish born architect who had immigrated to America some years earlier. After many delays and financial problems the building was habitable (but not completed) in 1800, when President John Adams and his wife, Abigail, moved in. Hoban’s original drawing of the north façade, which has survived, reflects the English-Palladian architecture of the mid 18th century. 

Thomas Jefferson, the second president to occupy the White House, employed the gifted architect Benjamin H. Latrobe in 1806 to help design the east and west pavilions. The latter has survived in its nearly original state. Latrobe also made designs of the north and south porticoes which were executed in a modified form at a later date. 

THE ORIGNAL WHITE

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•  Under James Hoban’s supervision the White House was rebuilt and was ready for occupancy in 1817, refurnished in the Empire Style with items imported from France by President James Monroe. However, in the architecture of the building, and particularly in the interior, Hoban returned to his earlier Palladian style and did not repeat the neoclassic innovations made by Latrobe. The scorched exterior walls were painted white. There is the misconception that this is the reason it was called the White House. Actually it had borne that name since it was first built. 

Throughout the 19th century the interior of the White House went through each successive decorative style, but the exterior appearance of the building remained the same. Gas lighting was introduced in 1849 and central heating in 1853. The first bathroom was installed in 1877. In 1833 pipes bringing water from a nearby spring replaced the pump formerly used. After 1853 water was piped in from the city’s water system. Electricity came to the White House during the residency of Benjamin Harris

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• In 1902, during the administration of President Theodore Roosevelt, the White House underwent its first major renovation, under the direction of the architectural firm of McKim, Mead, and White. The rooms on the first floor were stripped of their Victorian overlay and returned to their early-19th-century appearance. The grand staircase was moved into the entrance hall to permit the creation of the State Dining Room at the southwest corner of the building.

In 1949, under the administration of President Harry S. Truman, the White House was found unsafe for occupancy. The exterior walls were retained while the interior fabric of the building was removed and rebuilt on a steel and concrete frame. Great care was taken to preserve the original woodwork, marble mantle-pieces, and decorative plasterwork. The original floor plan was followed faithfully. A balcony, now known as the Truman Balcony, was built on the second-floor level of the South portico. It has become a favorite spot of presidential families. 

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• Decades of poor maintenance, the construction of a fourth story attic during the Coolidge administration, and the addition of a second-floor balcony over the south portico for Harry Truman[31] took a great toll on the brick and sandstone structure built around a timber frame.[12] By 1948, the house was declared to be in imminent danger of collapse, forcing President Truman to commission a reconstruction and move across the street toBlair House from 1949 to 1951.[32] The work, done by the firm of Philadelphia contractor John McShain, required the complete dismantling of the interior spaces, construction of a new load-bearing internal steel frame and the reconstruction of the original rooms within the new structure.[31] Some modifications to the floor plan were made, the largest being the repositioning of the grand staircase to open into the Entrance Hall, rather than the Cross Hall.[31] Central air conditioning was added, as well as two additional sub-basementsproviding space for workrooms, storage, and a bomb shelter.[12] The Trumans moved back into the White House on March 27, 1952.[12] While the house's structure was kept intact by the Truman reconstruction, much of the new interior finishes were generic, and of little historic value. Much of the original plasterwork, some dating back to the 1814–1816 rebuilding, was too damaged to reinstall, as was the original robust Beaux Arts paneling in the East Room. President Truman had the original timber frame sawed into paneling; the walls of the Vermeil Room, Library, China Room, and Map