The Results Of Obama’s Stimulus Spending Are “Horrifying”
So says Reuters blogger Jim Pethokoukis:
The two-year-old recovery’s terrible tale of the tape: A 9.1 percent unemployment rate that’s probably closer to 16 percent counting the discouraged and underemployed, the worst income growth and weakest GDP growth of any upturn since World War II, a still-weakening housing market. Oh, and a trillion bucks down the tube. Oh, and two-and-a-half years … and counting … wasted during which time the skills of unemployed workers continue to erode and the careers of younger Americans suffer long-term income damage. Losing the future.
Next, add in healthcare reform that Medicare’s chief actuary says will not slow the overall growth of healthcare spending. (Even its Obama administration godfather, Peter Orszag, warns that “more drastic measures may ultimately be needed.”) And toss in a financial reform plan that the outspoken and independent president of the Kansas City Fed says he “can’t imagine” working. “I don’t have faith in it all.” Indeed, markets continue to treat the biggest banks as if they are still too big to fail.
The Obama administration’s counter-argument to suggestions that the stimulus spending has failed is to claim that the economy would have been worse off with the spending. But fewer and fewer Americans are convinced by this line of reasoning, especially as angst over the budget situation grows.
In essence, the Obama administration deficit-spent $1 trillion on an economic stimulus bill that didn’t stimulate much of anything.
Tags: Barack Obama, Economy, jobs, Stimulus
