California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger gestures as he speaks during an appearance on ABC's This Week in Washington, February 21, 2010. REUTERS/Fred Watkins/This Week/Handout

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Arnold Schwarzenegger, California’s Republican governor, defended Democratic President Barack Obama’s stimulus plan on Sunday, saying 150,000 new jobs were created in his state thanks to the legislation.

At a conservative gathering in Washington this week, former presidential candidate Mitt Romney blasted the $787 billion stimulus bill and asserted it did not create any new jobs.

The California governor, asked about the comments on the ABC news program “This Week,” said many Republican politicians were railing against the program while seeking stimulus funds for their own districts.

“You have a lot of the Republicans running around and pushing back on the stimulus money and saying this doesn’t create any new jobs,” Schwarzenegger said.

“Then they go out and they do the photo ops and they are posing with the big check and they say ‘Isn’t this great?’”

The Obama administration says the stimulus has saved or created as many as 2 million jobs. Private economists widely agree that it staved off a far deeper economic contraction.

State governors are in Washington this week for their annual gathering and will meet Obama on Monday as both parties gear up for congressional elections in November.

“It’s kind of politics,” Schwarzenegger said of the claims by Republicans that no jobs flowed from the stimulus program.

He said teaching and infrastructure-related jobs were among those created in California.