The Republican mantra of late has been that the
job stimulus program enacted in 2009 didn't work, so it would be futile to do it again. The chart above shows that is simply not true. The program brought the country from a huge negative job growth (created by george Bush) to a small positive growth. The stimulus wasn't large enough so it didn't have the huge effect it that was hoped for -- but it DID work. Much more needs to be done now, because massive job creation is the only way out of our current economic mess.
So over 9 percent unemployment being the "new normal" means that the stimulus plan worked?
ReplyDeleteI keep coming back to this chart, showing projected unemployment with the recovery plan (dark blue), without the recovery plan (light blue) and the actual unemployment rate (red dots).
Unemployment with the plan has never been lower than projected unemployment without the plan. That indicates to me that we'd have been better off by doing nothing than by squandering three-quarters of a trillion dollars.
And now you want to throw another half a trillion at the problem?
Someone once said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.
No, I would throw a lot more than that at the problem (and it wouldn't include any tax cuts for the rich and corporations).
ReplyDelete