Nice try.
My statement is factually correct. We have spent the stimulus twice over and the economy has not significantly improved.
And how is that equivalent to how much we would have spent, if the stimulus had been triple the amount in the first place?
Republican math again. What ever factor you are using to multiply the small stimulus would have multiplied the large stimulus as well.
Right?
yorick73, you can start a new debate as to whether the Stimulus worked if you desire. That’s not what this thread is about.
However, you should know that Ezra Klein’s WONKBLOG looked at “the nine best studies on the subject” - some of which were optimistic and some of which were not - and concluded:
And a great many economists thought that the stimulus should have been bigger, though to be fair many of them operated with hindsight since the economy was in a lot worse shape than anyone really thought. Yes, there are cites for this. I’ll be happy to bring them up if you want to start a new thread.
Now, quit derailing this one, please.
If they continued to spend the same amount of money every year then yes, it would be triple the larger amount. The simple fact is that the stimulus increased spending in many government agencies. We have continued to fund those agencies to the same extent year-after-year. Are you denying that we have spent the equivalent of the stimulus every year since?
I’m not arguing whether or not the stimulus worked. I think it is quite apparent that it did not. You may feel otherwise. Fine with me. I feel that spending all that money further damaged the economy. Any increase in public spending decreases private spending by an equivalent amount.
You seem to think the GOP is actively trying to sabotage the economy. I think that is a typical childish leftist excuse to explain why everything done by Obama and the Dems in Congress failed to help the economy. The fact is that many of Obama’s policies are anti-business. Add this to the uncertainty of Obamacare for business and you should start to see that the Dems inadvertently sabotaged any economic recovery. And now he wants to blame Bush again. Funny
You don’t think it helped. What would the GDP and unemployment figures be now if it hadn’t passed?
What’s the uncertainty about the Affordable Care Act? Most of it doesn’t seem to have even taken effect yet and businesses have had years to read it and get ready.
Yes, however one of us has facts to base that opinion on. One has an uninformed and ignorant opinion. By all means, feel free to be wrong and wear that ignorance like a badge of honor.
Well, what you feel is wrong: What do you do when there is no public spending to begin with? That’s what a recession kind of is…
Economists - even conservative ones - pretty much uniformly agree that one spends their way out of a recession. What you “feel” doesn’t mean much because again the facts don’t agree with you.
Nice of you to actually get to the topic of this thread… And a lot of people think this, not just myself:
Actually it is the American populace that is blaming Bush:
Yorick,
If it’s true that stimulus spending became our new baseline, we’ve added ~800B to our federal spending every year which accounts for almost a 25% increase. Can you point to where the additional spending is going?
“Obamacare” in pure form would have saved money, it was the watering down that has made it costly.
Americans spend more than twice as much on their healthcare – per head – than any other country. Prior to Obama taking the helm healthcare cost was projected to increase by 7% in real terms each year.
So there was an economic case for reform.
Let alone the moral case of millions uninsured and tens of thousands of rescissions for those who do have coverage every year.
That and healthcare spending accounts for 17% (at least that’s the number that was thrown around during the healthcare debates, not sure of the accuracy) of our spending.
I don’t know and you don’t know either. Neither of us has a crystal ball (at least I don’t). We do know that it did not do what we were told it would do for the economy. All we really have are the cries of “it would have been much worse without the stimulus” to explain it’s failure. That’s not very satisfying.
The Affordable Care Act passage was not the end but just the beginning. HHS is hard at work as we speak writing regulations that will affect business in ways that are currently unknown.
Please quit derailing this thread.
Stimulus can work but this stimulus was far from targeted. Most of what they did is just spend money. If that alone could improve the economy then we should have been just fine with Bush’s profligate spending. Hell, maybe we would not have even gone into recession!
See above
What people believe is immaterial to this discussion. Most people believe gay marriage should not be legal but I bet you think otherwise. Right now Mitt Romney has an edge over Obama in the polls but I bet you don’t think Romney should win. What’s your point?
Almost 300 billion of the stimulus was tax cuts. I don’t consider tax cuts to be government spending. You can clearly see that we are spending the same amount or more as we did in 2009 when the stimulus was passed.
You seem to be contradicting yourself. You say that the watered down version is what makes it so expensive yet there is an economic case for reform. Am I missing something here?
More to the point…nobody believed passing Obamacare was going to pull us out of this recession. So, even if the bill was important for the future of the economy, the Dems still wasted valuable time that could have been used to help the economy.
Well, the 300B would probably have increased due to inflation, so that’s most likely a chunk of the increased cost.
However, you can’t say that you don’t count it as spending, then rail against the spending.
Just a misunderstanding.
I’m saying that there was a strong economic (as well as moral) case for reform of healthcare. The final PPAC act was vastly watered down from the original proposals, which would have been cheaper.
You misunderstand. the spending that I have been railing against is all of the one-time spending that has been folded into the baseline budget, which continues to get spent on a yearly basis. I mentioned the tax cuts because you are looking for an 800bn increase in spending. I am trying to explain to you that you are not correct.
Okay…now I see. Do you think it was a good idea to push through that legislation at that particular time instead of focusing on the immediate economy? I believe the Dems knew full well that they had a window of opportunity to get healthcare passed and simply dropped the ball on the economy as a result. I believe they inadvertently sabotaged the economy.
I can’t believe everyone else let this one go. What the hell are you talking about?
You make it sound as though the DHHS is some kind of shadowy cabal working behind closed doors. Quite apart from the fact that the business community is directly involved in writing administrative regulations, they are promulgated dozens of times for public comment before being implemented. The idea that these regulations will just be sprung on everyone in the night is laughable.