Gee. I'm stunned.
Are you stunned?
San Fransisco Fed. Says Stimulus Was A Huge
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According to recovery.gov, the President's website designed to track the stimulus plan, the $800 Billion plus porkulous bill passed in February 2009 is responsible for 3,348,813 jobs. According to a new analysis conducted by the San Fransisco office of the Federal Reserve, the president's projection is off by only 3,348,813 jobs. That's correct The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 created exactly zero permanent jobs.
Those of us who are still unemployed or even those who simply watch the unemployment numbers know that the stimulus bill was a failure, but what this study shows is that we could have saved the $800+ Billion. Jobs would have been almost the same and the federal deficit would have been in better shape. I say almost becase the plan did create short term jobs but they are long gone. The study also kills the Democratic party argument that we would have fallen into a depression without the Presidential porkage because for all intents and purposes, based on the effect of the plan, there was very little help to the economy:Wilson’s [SF Federal Reserve] study makes an important contribution to this debate by focusing on state-by-state comparisons. A large portion of stimulus funding at the state level was based on criteria that were entirely independent of the economic situation that states faced. For example, the number of existing highway miles was used to calculate additional transportation spending.
Was it February 8, 2009 when I posted the information from the CBO that contrary to leftist blather, that the recession would end in 2009 WITHOUT a stimulus and that such a stimulus would actually HURT our recovery?
Why yes. Yes it was.
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4 comments:
Our two points of view on this issue are so diametrically opposed that it's hard to believe we're both working from the same information! However, that's the big reason for a 2-party system.
I'll bet you 10 years from now we'll come to agreement on just what the truth was.
Took them this long to figure it out?
Or, this long just to admit it?
Martin, here's one thing we can agree on:
The President of the United States was lying when he told us that passage of this whale would top unemployment out at 8%.
Credibility is a huge part of this job. Lying to get a bill passed tends to injure that credibility.
Whatever the impacts of the stimulus have been, are, or will be, they don't come close to what the democrats promised when they passed it.
The way to do this is to "underpromise" and "over-deliver." Not the other way around.
WHen you combine the SF Fed's analysis with the CBO's analysis, it's hard to see where the stimulus was right... and where I am wrong.
I hear your political argument and I won't disagree.
Back to the facts: there was every chance of a depression. As in your "hooker on credit" example, a stimulus is intended to unstick the system. Our system is halfway unstuck. O'bama should get credit where credit is due, and take it in the shorts if his political skills are so feeble that he lets the tiger get away from him.
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