5 Years After Stimulus, Obama Says It Worked(libs at Time waking up)

Time Swampland ^ | Michael Grunwald

[gooblah]

Five years ago Monday, President Barack Obama visited the Denver Museum of Nature and Science to sign the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, his $800 billion stimulus bill. At the time, the U.S. economy was losing 800,000 jobs a month. In the fourth quarter of 2008, it had contracted at an 8% annual rate, a Depression-level free fall.

“Today does not mark the end of our economic problems,” Obama said on Feb. 17, 2009. “But it does mark the beginning of the end.”

And so it did. The stimulus quickly became a national joke, mocked by the right as a massive boondoggle and by the left as a pathetic pittance. A year after it passed, the percentage of Americans who believed it had created jobs was lower than the percentage of Americans who believed Elvis was alive. But after an epic financial crisis, the Recovery Act did launch a recovery. The economy started growing again in summer 2009. It started adding jobs again in spring 2010.

Read more: Economic Stimulus: 5 Years After Recovery Act, Obama Says It Worked | TIME.com http://swampland.time.com/2014/02/17/economic-stimulus-recovery-act-anniversary-obama/#ixzz2tbo7PSu8

[PapaNew]

Sure, it worked towards screwing up America which is Obama’s goal. Of course it worked.

[Da Coyote]

Odumbo doesn’t have the IQ to judge if an ice cube works.

Face it libs, your guy is dumb, dumb, DUMB!

Stupid, too.

[Republican Wildcat]

Except for the fact it did not work - virtually none of it was actually for infrastructure and brought no return on investment - it did add a trillion plus and growing to the debt, however. The CBO has already acknowledged in Congressional testimony it has been a net negative to the economy and that it will continue to be a drag on the economy for many, many years to come as the interest compounds on the additional debt it created.

[Republican Wildcat]

Liberalism itself is stupid.

[Doc Savage]

Someone tell me why Jews love this guy?

[fhayek]

The economy started growing again in summer 2009. It started adding jobs again in spring 2010.

Um, the DEBT grew faster than the economy. It still is. Any growth is due to pumping our grandchildren's future earnings into the economy now. But why quibble over minor details?

[Maceman]

Well, in fairness, he did create ONE shovel-ready job — Jay Carney’s.

[lepton]

Yes. The economy began growing in mid-2009...before any significant amount of the stimulus was spent. ...and then the recovery was strangled.

[TigersEye]

It worked. His cronies are richer than ever.

[Diogenesis]

"Let me please introduce myself
I am a man of wealth and taste.
I've been around for a long, long year
Stole many a mans soul and faith
Pleased to meet you
Hope you guess my name".

[bigbob]

The closer it gets to election time, the better they’ll all be saying it worked

[faithhopecharity]

dumb? stupid? he ran up an extra 7 Trillion dollars on our, the American taxpayers’ bill, and caused the money to disappear down a big Black Hole ...
never to be seen again by any of us.

His cover story...
that it was for “shovel-ready public works projects” -— he later admitted was false, there were no such projects.

But, he or his IslamoNazi enemy backers have our money...

is that dumb or stupid? Seems damned smart, really....
Have you gotten your hands on 7 Trillion dollars of OPM (other peoples’ money) recently?

Let’s give him credit where its due... he’s not dumb or stupid...

[Trailerpark Badass]

Obama's blatant and shameless lies serve as morale boosters to his Marxist fellow travelers, who can now be confident they have a true revolutionary believer at the levers of power.

That is their purpose, as well as the demoralization of those Americans who still love liberty.

[Brad from Tennessee]

[Yes. The economy began growing in mid-2009...before any significant amount of the stimulus was spent. ...and then the recovery was strangled.]

A recovery began about April 2009 but the Democrats disrupted the natural cycle with an agenda that included the Stimulus, Cap-and-Trade, ObamaCare and Dodd-Frank. Corporations, small businesses and investors decided to sit on their capital or invest offshore, a condition that has prevailed since 2009. The White House is trapped in an ideological box making it unwilling to launch any traditional remedies that have historically helped bring about recovery.

[Salman]

Oh but it did work. Mission accomplished in fact.

[mjp]

5 Years After Stimulus, Obama Says It Worked

It depends on what the meaning of "worked" is and what criteria are selected for the evaluation of how well it worked.The Keynesian policy of deficits and inflation increased aggregate demand and GNP,which is a measure of demand, but it prevented the rapid fall in prices and money wage rates which was necessary for a rapid fall in the unemployment rate.So, the stimulus actually slowed down the recovery in employment.

[okie01]

it did add a trillion plus and growing to the debt, however.

It's added a trillion plus to the debt EVERY YEAR since 2009!

Porkulus was sold as a one-time-only fix. But the Democrats buried it in departmental budgets, so that it became part of the so-called baseline budget.

Then when the Democrats refused to pass a budget in 2010 and the Democrat Senate refused to pass a budget in 2011 forward, the baseline budget controlled spending based on the previous year, plus an adjustment for inflation (+6-7%).

As a result, a trillion-plus was automatically authorized for spending every fiscal year -- thanks to Porkulus.