Did the stimulus work? A review of the nine best studies on the subject

[Synthaholic]

The stimulus needed to be bigger

As Paul Krugman advised.

 

[Synthaholic]

The stimulus needed to be bigger

Do you ever pay your bills? Ever heard of anyone getting more credit after maxing out all their credit cards and being downgraded? We are spending ourselves into the poorhouse already and you want to spend more? This is not the stock market or any type of business where you have to spend money to make money. Face it Uncle Sam's pocket has a hole in it and there is nothing left to spend..........

When you compare the U.S. Federal Government to a family with credit cards, it saves me the trouble of pointing out that you know nothing about economics.

 

[Synthaholic]

So, being a tad obsessive about fact over opinion, I read the article - mainly to answer my first question, which was:

How did the writer determine "the best". What methodology did he apply in order to establish the baseline of "the best". This is what I noticed:



So are they or are they not "the best" or are they just "the found"?

Find some others.

I've read others.

Fact is, he made the claim that it was nine of the best. Define the methodology of 'best'. You can't, because he didn't. It is not factually accurate. Therefore, it is bullshit.

It's not my problem if I spotted the gaping flaw in this blog and you didn't. I guess I'm just smarter than you.

You're a liar. Like that's 'breaking news'.

 

[Synthaholic]

Did the stimulus work? A review of the nine best studies on the subject




Here are the nine studies, organized by the conclusion and method used. Click on each one to see my summary of the study, how it reached its conclusions, and potential problems with its approach.




It worked (econometric):
Feyrer and Sacerdote. Chodorow-Reich, Feiveson, Liscow, and Woolston. Wilson.

It worked (modeling):
Congressional Budget Office. Council of Economic Advisors. Zandi and Blinder.

It worked a little bit (modeling):
Oh and Reis.

It didn’t work (econometric):
Conley and Dupor. Taylor.



As the descriptions above make clear, none of the studies are flawless. But while the optimistic studies do, in fact, support the conclusion that the stimulus worked, there is some reason to doubt that the pessimistic studies support the conclusion that it failed. Conley and Dupor found a negative effect on employment and output but, as they concede and critics of the study have emphasized, their results are not statistically significant. Taylor found that the stimulus did not increase government purchases significantly but, as Noah Smith argued, this result could be consistent with the stimulus increasing employment and output. Oh and Reis found a small multiplier for tax transfers of the kind found in the stimulus package, but as they concede, their model produces estimates for key figures that are empirically implausible. Using more plausible figures produces a significantly larger multiplier, meaning the package was more effective than the model initially suggested. Due to these issues, I’m inclined to believe that the preponderance of evidence indicates the stimulus worked.

Why are they using models when there are real actual facts available?

There are two measurables that these studies seem to ignor.

1. The growth of the economy in real dollars as compared to historic times of growth.

2. The increase in tax revenue that always accompanies any economic expansion.

Federal Spending Is Growing Faster Than Federal Revenue

Federal Spending Is Growing Faster Than Federal Revenue
Since 1965, spending has risen constantly. Federal revenues have dropped recently due to the economic recession, but spending has reached a record high.

U.S. Second-Quarter 2011 GDP Report Disappoints - Forex Analysis, Currency Forecast, FX Trading Signal - Action Forex

I've been reading Ezra Klein for a long time. If you think he is wrong, and have evidence to support your claim, write to him at the Washington Post. He will look at your data and respond.

 

[California Girl]

Find some others.

I've read others.

Fact is, he made the claim that it was nine of the best. Define the methodology of 'best'. You can't, because he didn't. It is not factually accurate. Therefore, it is bullshit.

It's not my problem if I spotted the gaping flaw in this blog and you didn't. I guess I'm just smarter than you.

You're a liar. Like that's 'breaking news'.

You're just pissed because it took me less than 5 minutes to demonstrate a fundamental flaw in your OP.

You can, I assume, prove that I have not read others? No. Of course you can't. Fucking idiot.

 

[Truthmatters]

still hasnt produces said studies?

what a surprise

 

[Synthaholic]

By its own stated objectives (unemployment peaking at 8%), the stimulus was an epic fail.

It's also quite representative of why most government programs fail - they don't meet a measurable objective. In the private sector, such programs would be cancelled due to being Bad Investments.

Prove that first sentence.

And while you are failing to do that, maybe you can compile the total amount of state government workers who have been laid off by wingnut governors, and see if that accounts for the other 1-2% of unemployment.

Barack Obama's Stimulus Plan: Failing by Its Own Measure - TIME

Back in early January, when Barack Obama was still President-elect, two of his chief economic advisers — leading proponents of a stimulus bill — predicted that the passage of a large economic-aid package would boost the economy and keep the unemployment rate below 8%. It hasn't quite worked out that way. Last month, the jobless rate in the U.S. hit 9.5%, the highest level it has reached since 1983

Read more: Barack Obama's Stimulus Plan: Failing by Its Own Measure - TIME

So, no quotes from Obama, saying that it would be 8%?

Just as I thought.

And it did boost the economy.

btw - did you bother to watch that video I linked to, from Rachel Maddow, or is your head in the ideological sand, too?

 

[Oddball]

The stimulus needed to be bigger

As Paul Krugman advised.

Also completely unfalsifiable.

Throw a trillion at the problem and things somehow get better, it's touted as proof that the succubus worked...If it doesn't work, claim that you didn't spend enough soon enough.

Fortunately, this line of "thought" (for lack of a better description) only seems to work on gullible rube liberoidals.

 

[Flopper]

What utter tripe.

The projection was 8% and unemployment topped 10%...It remains well above that level if you count those who have run out of unemployment benefits and those who have quit looking for work.

There is absolutely no way you can back up the fantasy of "jobs saved"....That one is the biggest heaps of unfalsifiable, post-hoc-ergo-propter-hoc horseshit of all time.

By any metric used by people who keep their feet planted in Realityville, the succubus was a towering failure...And the only thing that bullshitters like you can do is claim that failure is evidence that even more failure is called for.

The bill performed as promised, to stop the job lost. Nowhere did the president promise 8% unemployment. The council of economic advisers estimated it would go below 8% and qualified their estimate pointing out the margin of error and the many assumptions the estimate was based. The stimulus reduced the monthly job loss from 600,000 a month to 114,000 a month job gain. It performed exactly as Obama said and yes it was a success. The only flaw in the stimulus was it was not large enough.

How do you figure? Since the Obama stimulus was passed the US has lost two and a half million jobs. The stimulus was an abject failure. Germany refused to do a huge stimulus like we did, calling it fiscally unsound. So we spent a trillion on stimulus and they didn't. So guess who's economy recovered quicker...theirs or ours? Sorry, Flopper but this Administrations Keynesian "experiment" was a flop.

Not so. Germany had two stimulus packages totally 109 billion. Their economy is 1/5 the size of the US economy. When you consider that Germany has unlimited means test unemployment compensation plus it got economic stimulus from the EU, the total of the stimulus packages were larger than in the US, yet the recession as measured by the fall in GDP was twice as bad in the US. GDP fell 9% in the US compared to 4.7% in Germany. The US economic stimulus was a weak response compared to many countries.

US GDP in second quarter of 2011 revised down to annualised rate of 1.0%
Unemployment benefits

 

[Sundial]

By its own stated objectives (unemployment peaking at 8%), the stimulus was an epic fail.

It's also quite representative of why most government programs fail - they don't meet a measurable objective. In the private sector, such programs would be cancelled due to being Bad Investments.

Prove that first sentence.

And while you are failing to do that, maybe you can compile the total amount of state government workers who have been laid off by wingnut governors, and see if that accounts for the other 1-2% of unemployment.

From Wikipedia:

American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009
Acronym ARRA
Colloquial name(s) The Recovery Act, Stimulus
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, abbreviated ARRA (Pub.L. 111-5) and commonly referred to as the Stimulus or The Recovery Act, is an economic stimulus package enacted by the 111th United States Congress in February 2009 and signed into law on February 17, 2009 by President Barack Obama.

To respond to the late-2000s recession, the primary objective for ARRA was to save and create jobs almost immediately. Secondary objectives were to provide temporary relief programs for those most impacted by the recession and invest in infrastructure, education, health, and ‘green’ energy. The approximate cost of the economic stimulus package was estimated to be $787 Billion at the time of passage. The Act included direct spending in infrastructure, education, health, and energy, federal tax incentives, and expansion of unemployment benefits and other social welfare provisions. The Act also included many items not directly related to economic recovery such as long-term spending projects (e.g. a study of the effectiveness of medical treatments) and other items specifically included by Congress (e.g. a limitation on executive compensation in federally aided banks added by Senator Dodd and Rep. Frank).


Me:
President Obama, speaker Pelosi, Leader Harry Reid, and every other democrat within shouting distance of a microphone told us the stimulus bill would lower unemployment to below 8%. That was the supposed to be the primary objective as stated above. One can argue that many jobs were saved or created, but as you no doubt know the fact is that we have some 2 million fewer people employed now than we did then. Most people would label that as a failure.

Gotta ask, we were supposed to spend money on infrastructure out of this bill, where'd that money go? Why do we need more money on infrastructure?

Can you produce a quote showing where or when Obama, Reid, or Pelosi promised "the stimulus bill would lower unemployment to below 8%"?



Edit: No, because none of them ever said it If your Fox News/AM radio/Drudge Report sources are telling you things that are objectively, verifiably untrue, why do you trust them?

 

[Flopper]

What utter tripe.

The projection was 8% and unemployment topped 10%...It remains well above that level if you count those who have run out of unemployment benefits and those who have quit looking for work.

There is absolutely no way you can back up the fantasy of "jobs saved"....That one is the biggest heaps of unfalsifiable, post-hoc-ergo-propter-hoc horseshit of all time.

By any metric used by people who keep their feet planted in Realityville, the succubus was a towering failure...And the only thing that bullshitters like you can do is claim that failure is evidence that even more failure is called for.

The bill performed as promised, to stop the job lost. Nowhere did the president promise 8% unemployment. The council of economic advisers estimated it would go below 8% and qualified their estimate pointing out the margin of error and the many assumptions the estimate was based. The stimulus reduced the monthly job loss from 600,000 a month to 114,000 a month job gain. It performed exactly as Obama said and yes it was a success. The only flaw in the stimulus was it was not large enough.

How do you figure? Since the Obama stimulus was passed the US has lost two and a half million jobs. The stimulus was an abject failure. Germany refused to do a huge stimulus like we did, calling it fiscally unsound. So we spent a trillion on stimulus and they didn't. So guess who's economy recovered quicker...theirs or ours? Sorry, Flopper but this Administrations Keynesian "experiment" was a flop.

Effects of passing the stimulus were not immediate. The tax cuts, which were about 1/3 of the bill and the job fund allocation took some months to implement and several more months for the economy to respond. If you look at seasonally adjusted US non-farm labor from the BLS, it shows beginning in the end of 2009 a slow down in job loss followed by a gradual increase in employment resulting in about a 1.6 million job growth.

Browse US Employment Data

 

[SFC Ollie]

417,000








fail

 

[Oldstyle]

The bill performed as promised, to stop the job lost. Nowhere did the president promise 8% unemployment. The council of economic advisers estimated it would go below 8% and qualified their estimate pointing out the margin of error and the many assumptions the estimate was based. The stimulus reduced the monthly job loss from 600,000 a month to 114,000 a month job gain. It performed exactly as Obama said and yes it was a success. The only flaw in the stimulus was it was not large enough.

How do you figure? Since the Obama stimulus was passed the US has lost two and a half million jobs. The stimulus was an abject failure. Germany refused to do a huge stimulus like we did, calling it fiscally unsound. So we spent a trillion on stimulus and they didn't. So guess who's economy recovered quicker...theirs or ours? Sorry, Flopper but this Administrations Keynesian "experiment" was a flop.

Effects of passing the stimulus were not immediate. The tax cuts, which were about 1/3 of the bill and the job fund allocation took some months to implement and several more months for the economy to respond. If you look at seasonally adjusted US non-farm labor from the BLS, it shows beginning in the end of 2009 a slow down in job loss followed by a gradual increase in employment resulting in about a 1.6 million job growth.

Browse US Employment Data

Well of course you're going to get a "slow down" of job losses. TARP stabilized the economy. The recession bottomed out and as with every other recession the economy started a slow recovery. Obama apologists look at that and say it was because of the Obama "stimulus". The problem with THAT rather dubious contention is that if you look at the history of recessions they ALL bottom out and start to slowly recover...and they have historically done so without spending a trillion dollars in stimulus. In fact most of them recover at a much faster rate than this one has without spending all that money. So how is THIS stimulus a success?

 

[Oldstyle]

The bill performed as promised, to stop the job lost. Nowhere did the president promise 8% unemployment. The council of economic advisers estimated it would go below 8% and qualified their estimate pointing out the margin of error and the many assumptions the estimate was based. The stimulus reduced the monthly job loss from 600,000 a month to 114,000 a month job gain. It performed exactly as Obama said and yes it was a success. The only flaw in the stimulus was it was not large enough.

How do you figure? Since the Obama stimulus was passed the US has lost two and a half million jobs. The stimulus was an abject failure. Germany refused to do a huge stimulus like we did, calling it fiscally unsound. So we spent a trillion on stimulus and they didn't. So guess who's economy recovered quicker...theirs or ours? Sorry, Flopper but this Administrations Keynesian "experiment" was a flop.

Not so. Germany had two stimulus packages totally 109 billion. Their economy is 1/5 the size of the US economy. When you consider that Germany has unlimited means test unemployment compensation plus it got economic stimulus from the EU, the total of the stimulus packages were larger than in the US, yet the recession as measured by the fall in GDP was twice as bad in the US. GDP fell 9% in the US compared to 4.7% in Germany. The US economic stimulus was a weak response compared to many countries.

US GDP in second quarter of 2011 revised down to annualised rate of 1.0%
Unemployment benefits

The following is from an article written by Gary Becker, Prof. of economics at Chicago University. I think it sums up the different approaches taken by us and the Germans to the recession and the results of those approaches.

"The case of Germany is one of the most interesting, only partly because Germany is the largest economy of Europe. Under the long reign by the conservative Christian Democratic Union, little was done to reform the German labor market. In a reminder again of the “Nixon going to China” doctrine, the socialistic Social Democrats, led by Gerhard Schroder, introduced various labor market reforms in 2003 after being elected to power in 1998. He cut the length of the period of eligibility for unemployment compensation, extended the age of retirement and reduced retirement pensions, and made it a little easier for companies to layoff workers. In good part as a result of these policies, while Germany unemployment had been close to 10%, it fell to 7.5% prior to the onset of the recession, perhaps mainly due to these reforms.

Germany was hit hard by the worldwide great recession as world GDP took a nosedive, mainly because Germany is the world’s second largest exporter after China. Its GDP fell by over 5 percentage points in 2009, and is expected to rise by about 2% this year as world GDP recovers, and because the euro has fallen by about 10% relative to the dollar since the euro peaked at about $1.5 per euro. The German economy as measured by GDP was during the first quarter of 2010 still somewhat below comparable numbers for the first quarter of 2008.

What happened to German employment and unemployment is even more interesting. Employment fell only slightly, but part time work increased sharply as jobs were spread. Unemployment rates increased only a little. Unemployment is now down to its 7.5% pre crisis level, and employment is back at its earlier peak, and part time work is declining, as the German economy continues to recover.

Contrast this with the American economy. On the one hand, the US financial system was hit much harder than the German system. On the other hand, the German economy is far more dependent on exports than is the American economy. The net effect of these differences is not completely clear, although US GDP fell by a lot during the first year after the recession hit, but then began to recover at a moderate rate. Whereas Germany’s unemployment rate grew by very little during the recession, the US unemployment rate grew by over 5 percentage points.

This difference in employment and unemployment behavior between Germany and the US may be mainly the result of the fact that the American labor market is still far more flexible in most respects than the German labor market. However, if that were the main explanation, then the jobs recovery in Germany should have been slower than in the US, but that has not been the case. Total jobs in Germany are about at their pre-crisis level, whereas the number of Americans employed is still several million below its peak in 2008.

Germany was criticized because it did not have a big enough stimulus and did not run large enough fiscal deficits to stimulate the economy. In early 2009, Germany introduced a 50 billion euro stimulus package after much urging from intellectuals and some economists. That is about 1.6% of its GDP, with about one-third earmarked for infrastructure improvements, and the other two thirds going to tax cuts, child allowances, and social benefits. Even more important from the traditional “stimulus” analysis, Germany’s fiscal deficit is expected to hit between 5-6% in 2010, smaller than the fiscal deficits in many euro-zone countries.

Contrast these numbers with those for the United States. The American stimulus package of about $800 billion-by no means as yet all spent- is 6% of American GDP, about four times as large relative to GDP as the German stimulus. Even more telling is that the fiscal deficit during 2009 and expected during 2010 amount to about 12% of American GDP, far larger than the fiscal deficits Germany has been running. Germany has recently taken actions to cut spending and raise some taxes, while the US government continues to think of ways to increase government spending, as if the huge fiscal deficit is not enough.

Let it be clear that I am not claiming that US employment and unemployment has been very sluggish in recovering to pre crisis levels mainly because the US has had a large stimulus package and large fiscal deficits. They probably have been factors, but the evidence is still too uncertain to reach such a judgment. But it is clear that the stimulus package completely failed relative to the explicit predictions of the Obama administration and its Council of Economic Advisers about what would happen to unemployment. They predicted unemployment would decline by about 1.5 percentage points from a much lower peak, whereas so far the total decline from the higher unemployment peak of 10.2% is only 0.7 percentage points.

I continue to believe that the biggest factor in the sluggish employment recovery of the US is that many of the actual new and proposed anti-business legislation, as well as the large fiscal deficits, made businessmen and investors cautious about taking on new workers. These proposals and laws include the health care bill, the pro-union bias and anti-business rhetoric of Congress and the president, suggested increased taxes on higher earners, changes in anti-trust laws to be less pro-consumer, and the endlessly complicated and largely misplaced financial “reform” law. Germany, by contrast, has continued with the same coalition government headed by the mainly pro-investment, pro trade Christian Democrats. Germany surely made various mistakes during this recession, but the US has made many more."

Bottom line is...Germany is back to the same unemployment levels they were at before the recession. We are at almost double the unemployment rate than before the recession and the CBO is predicting that will remain the norm for years to come. So how can you call anything that Obama did a success? It's quite obviously an utter and extremely expensive failure.

 

[iamwhatiseem]

Post Stimulus:

1) Unemployment - relatively unchanged.
2) Underemployment - actually increased.
3) GDP - stagnate under anybody's measure.
4) Toxic assets that were supposed to disappear - still here.
5) Real Estate market - still trashed.

HOWEVER

1) The year after of the stimulus - salary increases and bonuses for upper managers in every single top U.S. bank - highest on record.
2) The year after the stimulus - NYSE had the best year in recorded history.
3) The year after the stimulus - Goldman Sachs stock value increase 149 points. It's greatest year...wait for it...in recorded history.


And you IDIOTS - think it was such a great thing.

 

[Wiseacre]

I don't give a fuck who promised what - the truth is we've spent our asses off over the past 3 years, including some of Bush's last year, and we got shit to show for it. You can cite all the "best studies" you want, but you can't hide reality, which is we're barely above negative growth and too many people are out of work.

 

[code1211]

Did the stimulus work? A review of the nine best studies on the subject




Here are the nine studies, organized by the conclusion and method used. Click on each one to see my summary of the study, how it reached its conclusions, and potential problems with its approach.




It worked (econometric):
Feyrer and Sacerdote. Chodorow-Reich, Feiveson, Liscow, and Woolston. Wilson.

It worked (modeling):
Congressional Budget Office. Council of Economic Advisors. Zandi and Blinder.

It worked a little bit (modeling):
Oh and Reis.

It didn’t work (econometric):
Conley and Dupor. Taylor.



As the descriptions above make clear, none of the studies are flawless. But while the optimistic studies do, in fact, support the conclusion that the stimulus worked, there is some reason to doubt that the pessimistic studies support the conclusion that it failed. Conley and Dupor found a negative effect on employment and output but, as they concede and critics of the study have emphasized, their results are not statistically significant. Taylor found that the stimulus did not increase government purchases significantly but, as Noah Smith argued, this result could be consistent with the stimulus increasing employment and output. Oh and Reis found a small multiplier for tax transfers of the kind found in the stimulus package, but as they concede, their model produces estimates for key figures that are empirically implausible. Using more plausible figures produces a significantly larger multiplier, meaning the package was more effective than the model initially suggested. Due to these issues, I’m inclined to believe that the preponderance of evidence indicates the stimulus worked.

Why are they using models when there are real actual facts available?

There are two measurables that these studies seem to ignor.

1. The growth of the economy in real dollars as compared to historic times of growth.

2. The increase in tax revenue that always accompanies any economic expansion.

Federal Spending Is Growing Faster Than Federal Revenue

Federal Spending Is Growing Faster Than Federal Revenue
Since 1965, spending has risen constantly. Federal revenues have dropped recently due to the economic recession, but spending has reached a record high.

U.S. Second-Quarter 2011 GDP Report Disappoints - Forex Analysis, Currency Forecast, FX Trading Signal - Action Forex

I've been reading Ezra Klein for a long time. If you think he is wrong, and have evidence to support your claim, write to him at the Washington Post. He will look at your data and respond.

Obviously, he's wrong. If he knows this, my writing to him will not add to his knowledge. If he does not know this, again, my writing to him will not add to his knowledge.

If the Failed Stimulus had worked, we would be at full employment, the tax revenues would be increasing and the world would not be wondering where to invest.

We're not at full employment, tax revenues are weak and China looks like a good bet.

I cold be wrong about this. Supposing for a moment that the improved or worsened economy could be measured by any other means than a model, what do you suppose those means might be?

 

[code1211]

Prove that first sentence.

And while you are failing to do that, maybe you can compile the total amount of state government workers who have been laid off by wingnut governors, and see if that accounts for the other 1-2% of unemployment.

Barack Obama's Stimulus Plan: Failing by Its Own Measure - TIME

Back in early January, when Barack Obama was still President-elect, two of his chief economic advisers — leading proponents of a stimulus bill — predicted that the passage of a large economic-aid package would boost the economy and keep the unemployment rate below 8%. It hasn't quite worked out that way. Last month, the jobless rate in the U.S. hit 9.5%, the highest level it has reached since 1983

Read more: Barack Obama's Stimulus Plan: Failing by Its Own Measure - TIME

So, no quotes from Obama, saying that it would be 8%?

Just as I thought.

And it did boost the economy.

btw - did you bother to watch that video I linked to, from Rachel Maddow, or is your head in the ideological sand, too?

I needn't watch idealogues from either extreme to know what their thesis will be.

Boost the economy? Define "Boost". Are you implying, then, that the Big 0 opposed the Failed Stimulus?

 

[code1211]

The bill performed as promised, to stop the job lost. Nowhere did the president promise 8% unemployment. The council of economic advisers estimated it would go below 8% and qualified their estimate pointing out the margin of error and the many assumptions the estimate was based. The stimulus reduced the monthly job loss from 600,000 a month to 114,000 a month job gain. It performed exactly as Obama said and yes it was a success. The only flaw in the stimulus was it was not large enough.

How do you figure? Since the Obama stimulus was passed the US has lost two and a half million jobs. The stimulus was an abject failure. Germany refused to do a huge stimulus like we did, calling it fiscally unsound. So we spent a trillion on stimulus and they didn't. So guess who's economy recovered quicker...theirs or ours? Sorry, Flopper but this Administrations Keynesian "experiment" was a flop.

Not so. Germany had two stimulus packages totally 109 billion. Their economy is 1/5 the size of the US economy. When you consider that Germany has unlimited means test unemployment compensation plus it got economic stimulus from the EU, the total of the stimulus packages were larger than in the US, yet the recession as measured by the fall in GDP was twice as bad in the US. GDP fell 9% in the US compared to 4.7% in Germany. The US economic stimulus was a weak response compared to many countries.
US GDP in second quarter of 2011 revised down to annualised rate of 1.0%
Unemployment benefits

Also weak when compared to one that was both well planned and effective.

 

[code1211]

Prove that first sentence.

And while you are failing to do that, maybe you can compile the total amount of state government workers who have been laid off by wingnut governors, and see if that accounts for the other 1-2% of unemployment.

From Wikipedia:

American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009
Acronym ARRA
Colloquial name(s) The Recovery Act, Stimulus
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, abbreviated ARRA (Pub.L. 111-5) and commonly referred to as the Stimulus or The Recovery Act, is an economic stimulus package enacted by the 111th United States Congress in February 2009 and signed into law on February 17, 2009 by President Barack Obama.

To respond to the late-2000s recession, the primary objective for ARRA was to save and create jobs almost immediately. Secondary objectives were to provide temporary relief programs for those most impacted by the recession and invest in infrastructure, education, health, and ‘green’ energy. The approximate cost of the economic stimulus package was estimated to be $787 Billion at the time of passage. The Act included direct spending in infrastructure, education, health, and energy, federal tax incentives, and expansion of unemployment benefits and other social welfare provisions. The Act also included many items not directly related to economic recovery such as long-term spending projects (e.g. a study of the effectiveness of medical treatments) and other items specifically included by Congress (e.g. a limitation on executive compensation in federally aided banks added by Senator Dodd and Rep. Frank).


Me:
President Obama, speaker Pelosi, Leader Harry Reid, and every other democrat within shouting distance of a microphone told us the stimulus bill would lower unemployment to below 8%. That was the supposed to be the primary objective as stated above. One can argue that many jobs were saved or created, but as you no doubt know the fact is that we have some 2 million fewer people employed now than we did then. Most people would label that as a failure.

Gotta ask, we were supposed to spend money on infrastructure out of this bill, where'd that money go? Why do we need more money on infrastructure?

Can you produce a quote showing where or when Obama, Reid, or Pelosi promised "the stimulus bill would lower unemployment to below 8%"?

Edit: No, because none of them ever said it If your Fox News/AM radio/Drudge Report sources are telling you things that are objectively, verifiably untrue, why do you trust them?

Can you produce a quote showing where Obama, Reid or Pelosi that promises when the unemployment rate will once again drop to 8%?

I think we can probably agree that things are not getting better quickly. Does anyone in this administation or the Democrat party have any idea when things might improve?

It would be nice if maybe they did. Of course that would mean they have a plan, understand the problem, have a clue, know something, aren't crooks, blah, blah, blah.