A new report released Tuesday by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office found that the stimulus package cost more than originally anticipated, and has also done more to boost the economy than any critic wants to give it credit for.

The report found that in the second quarter alone, stimulus spending helped to create as many as 3.3 million jobs.

That parallels with the Obama administration’s claim that the massive spending package would save or create up to 3.5 million jobs by the end of the year.

On the low end of the scale, the stimulus package created at minimum 1.4 million dollars in the period between April and June.

That flies in the face of claims made by Republicans that the stimulus package did not create a single job.

“One year later, one thing is clear: the stimulus bill has failed. One year later, not one net job has been created,” Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) claimed back in February.

The measure also saved the economy from falling into an unemployment rate of higher than 10 percent. According to the report, the package cut the unemployment rate by as much as 1.8 percent.

Over that same time, the Recovery Act also boosted gross domestic product by as much as 4.5 percent.

All that seems to indicate that the stimulus package was not “by any objective measure, a complete failure,” as the chairman of the North Carolina Republican Party claimed earlier this week.

One area where the stimulus has failed, has been in holding down costs. Originally intended to cost $787 billion, the CBO’s report says that the package is expected to cost $814 billion over the next 10 years. That, however, is still lower than the estimated cost in the first quarter of the year, which was $862 billion.

The report also found that the stimulus package has nearly run its course in terms of boosting the economy. By the end of next month, 70 percent of the package is expected to be spent.

“This new analysis from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office is further confirmation of what we’ve been hearing from leading economists, the nation’s governors and families across the country: the Recovery Act is working to rescue the economy from eight years of failed economic policy and rebuild it even stronger than before,” Vice President Joe Biden said in a statement.

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