5 thoughts on “Let’s Put Them In Charge Of Our Health”
We can’t prove that the Stimulus saved or lost jobs. But it’s worth noting that the detractors to the Stimulus predicted this sort of thing, while the supporters of the Stimulus did not. Further, there was some bad law in the Stimulus bill that on its own would have lost jobs (eg, the COBRA extension for unemployed with costs temporarily shifted to employers). This sort of curve is what you would expect, if the Stimulus lost rather than “created or saved” jobs.
The largest negative effects of the Stimulus haven’t even kicked in yet. The spending was deliberately loaded to be right in front of the 2010 elections. So… the best Stimulus II that I can imagine would be “Repeal at least all currently unspent allocations from Stimulus I.”
Here’s Irwin M. Stelzer in the Weekly Standard on 12/19/2008:
Economists with whom I have spoken–and these are the people listened to at the highest levels in both parties and at Ben Bernanke’s Federal Reserve Board–believe that the unemployment rate, now at 6.7 percent, will hit double digits sometime in 2009, and stay there well into 2010.
Obama’s team was obviously too optimistic about the depth of the recession; otherwise there might have been a push for a larger stimulus.
There’s a silver lining to every cloud, Jim. Now that voters have actually seen what “stimulus” means, it has become somewhat harder for the Democrats to damage the US economy with poorly thought out favoritism masquerading as “stimulus”.
Obama’s team was obviously too optimistic about the depth of the recession; otherwise there might have been a push for a larger stimulus.
Indeed, as with the Honduran situation, anything that goes well near BO is largely accidental. It’s like he’s being played by Peter Sellers…
We can’t prove that the Stimulus saved or lost jobs. But it’s worth noting that the detractors to the Stimulus predicted this sort of thing, while the supporters of the Stimulus did not. Further, there was some bad law in the Stimulus bill that on its own would have lost jobs (eg, the COBRA extension for unemployed with costs temporarily shifted to employers). This sort of curve is what you would expect, if the Stimulus lost rather than “created or saved” jobs.
The largest negative effects of the Stimulus haven’t even kicked in yet. The spending was deliberately loaded to be right in front of the 2010 elections. So… the best Stimulus II that I can imagine would be “Repeal at least all currently unspent allocations from Stimulus I.”
Here’s Irwin M. Stelzer in the Weekly Standard on 12/19/2008:
Obama’s team was obviously too optimistic about the depth of the recession; otherwise there might have been a push for a larger stimulus.
There’s a silver lining to every cloud, Jim. Now that voters have actually seen what “stimulus” means, it has become somewhat harder for the Democrats to damage the US economy with poorly thought out favoritism masquerading as “stimulus”.
Indeed, as with the Honduran situation, anything that goes well near BO is largely accidental. It’s like he’s being played by Peter Sellers…