Stimulus Plan – One Year Later
Has the stimulus plan, which is one year old today, accomplished what it should have in this time frame?
You be the judge based on the following:
The Department of Transportation has approved over 10,000 state highway projects for a total of 34 billion dollars… only about 8 billion has been disbursed as of now. That seems like reasonable figures for a year to me.
Eight billion went to food stamps… although that is noble, it did not stimulate the economy. Fail.
The plan has made it possible for extended unemployment benefits. Again a noble cause but not in line with “stimulus”. Fail
Forty-Eight billion to states to stabilize and help balance their budgets. Is that stimulus? Perhaps if the trickle down caused new jobs, new businesses, businesses to grow or perhaps new construction.
Somewhere between 595,263 jobs were created or saved by the plan in the final three months of 2009, the White House said in late January. A previous report, which had used a different method of calculation, said it had saved 640,239 jobs in the prior quarter. Pass.
The White House Council of Economic Advisers estimates that there would have been 1.5 million to 2 million fewer jobs in 2009 if not for the stimulus funds. I’m not a huge fan of self grading when it comes to a bunch of politicos. Pass if true.
The Congressional Budget Office estimates the package is responsible for employing up to 2.4 million people. Where did they get those figures but if accurate – Pass.
US unemployment figures were 7.7% last year at this time and now they stand at 9.7% nationally. Double Fail!
The GDP grew 5.7% in the last quarter of 2009 which is two consecutive quarters of growth consecutively. That is huge as a recession buster. Double Pass!
So, we spent some 800 billion dollars on this stimulus plan and in all reality the difference over a year is close to insignificant with the exception of the GDP. I give the stimulus plan a 78 on a scale of 100. Where I went to school, that was passing but you sure didn’t want to show that score to your parents who were shelling out significant amounts of money for a private school education.