New Evidence That The Obama Stimulus Was a Bust

powerline ^ | 8/22/10 | paul

[Nachum]

The debate in the popular press and on blogs about the efficacy of the 2009 stimulus bill generally has been superficial on both sides. Those who tout the bill point to a study by liberal economists Alan Blinder and Mark Zandi purporting to show that the fiscal stimulus enacted under Presidents Bush and Obama lowered the unemployment rate by approximately 1.5 percentage points. However, as Lawrence Lindsey points out in the Weekly Standard, this study assumed that the recent stimulus has been roughly as effective, dollar for dollar, as past programs. It then multiplied past measures of job creation by the number of dollars spent this time around.

[Nachum]

the actual performance of the economy with respect to jobs is almost exactly what they said would it would be if we had done nothing

[Nachum]

The list, ping

[dalebert]

who needs anymore prooof that its a bust.

[rockabyebaby]

Well, all you have to do is look around to see that the stimulus has not and will not work.

[MNJohnnie]

[Man50D]

The BO/BS stimulus achieved its purpose. It expanded the federal government

[listenhillary]

How did you spend your $8,700 in stimulus money?
Congress has divvied up the $1 trillion stimulus. Where did your share go?

http://www.csmonitor.com/Business/The-Reformed-Broker/2010/0820/How-did-you-spend-your-8-700-in-stimulus-money?

[bmwcyle]

Social Justice is Bull Crap.

[blam]

Where's My V-Shaped Recovery?

[purplelobster]

While journalists are still pretending that the Stimulus is working they should be preparing reports about how so much of the population were deluded into thinking this massive theft was a good idea. I suppose this would require journalists investigating themselves, so I can’t see it happening.

[Rashputin]

It's about time we quit playing the game and calling this 800bn a “stimulus” package. It was a political graft payoff package pure and simple. Anyone who is careful to close primarily Republican owned auto dealerships while taking over ownership of auto manufacturers isn't going to be spending any money just because it will help the economy at large. Like everything else these thugs do, the money they managed to extort from the public in the name of helping the economy was very carefully targeted to help only those who support them.

If you look at the real goals of this spending bill it was a wildly successful payoff scam, that's why it can't be said to be successful if you try to analyze the propaganda image of the bill rather than the actual intent of it. Stop even calling this a stimulus package rather than a payoff or graft package and you can think about it clearly.

Regards

[Nachum]

Of course it was. The more accurate description is a 'patronage' program.

It is exactly how Chicago politics is run. It was a given that they would do this from day one.

[BenLurkin]

[HearMe]

Things would be so much worse if the financial markets had not recovered nicely since the March 2009 low.

None of that has anything to do with Obama.

It has to do with the Fed keeping interest rates near zero.

Obama’s stimulus has added to the deficit which only makes things worse and those chickens, to quote his mentor, have yet to come to roost.

[Son House]

Democrats messed up ‘Keynesian economics’; government stimulus “might work” in a depression, not a recession;

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123249646698200289.html

In normal recessions — the argument goes — an increase in discretionary government spending is unnecessary and even counterproductive. But in the event that a recession becomes a depression, a Keynesian stimulus package might work.

[Son House]

Yeah, It’s like getting liposuction, only coming out fatter. It’s time to convict Democrats of Economic Malpractice.

[The Comedian]

the actual performance of the economy with respect to jobs is almost exactly what they said would it would be if we had done nothing

Except there is also the addition of $3 trillion more debt and completely compromised market equilibrium safety measures.

Not to mention the complete collapse of faith that small business has that this regime has any respect at all for capitalism and the rule of law.

Frowning takes 68 muscles.
Smiling takes 6.
Pulling this trigger takes 2.
I'm lazy.

[csmusaret]

We can compare the Obama Stimulus to a country with no stimulus.

[Aria]

Yes, it expanded the federal government, rewarded the politically connected - including the very rich - at a the expense of the middle class who are left with the bill.

This is an out and out effort to destroy our middle class - something that has made the US strong and powerful.

[loveliberty2]

"I am for a government rigorously frugal and simple, applying all the possible savings of the public revenue to the discharge of the national debt; and not for a multiplication of officers and salaries merely to make partisans, and for increasing by every device the public debt on the principle of its being a public blessing."

--Thomas Jefferson to Elbridge Gerry, 1799. ME 10:77