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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsOur Stupid Discourse: "Did the Stimulus Work?"
I don't think the donkey metaphor is right. Republicans don't *want* to understand. They want to drown govt in a bathtub, and it isn't because they just haven't been presented with a better idea they hadn't thought of. That is the fallacy behind the whole "reach across the isle" meme. The modern GOP doesn't want to cooperate to "solve problems," or "work together." They want to loot the country, give the spoils to themselves and their rich sponsors, and leave the 99% with a smoking ruin.
The answer to all those questions is 'yes.'
The second question is whether it 'worked' in the sense that it repaired the damage done to the economy by the collapse of the housing bubble and the financial sector. That's a more subjective question. No bill could reverse the financial damage done to countless individuals or businesses that failed. But perhaps a bill could help bring the unemployment rate down to pre-crisis levels. The stimulus bill 'worked' in the sense that it created over 3 million jobs. It didn't work in the sense that it didn't create 7 million jobs.
The obvious conclusion is that the stimulus bill was a good bill that should have been bigger. Trying to get a Republican to understand that is like trying to teach calculus to a donkey.
http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2012/6/7/95539/64393
hughee99
(16,113 posts)that hasn't even been spent yet, and it still created that many jobs.
ProgressiveEconomist
(5,818 posts)Dont forget that the "stimulus" was only two-thirds stimulus spending in the traditional sense. Even using the term "stimulus" for the Recovery Act thus substantially accedes to an outright Republican lie.
As a result of "reaching across the aisle to compromise", fully one third of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 cpnsisted of Republican-style tax cuts. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Recovery_and_Reinvestment_Act_of_2009 .
According to the Congressional Budget Office, there were much more effective job-creation uses for the $275 billion spent on tax cuts in the Act, namely spending on the unemployed and the very poor, and tax incentives for businesses that ACTUALLY increase net jobs and net wages:
"Higher-impact policies
Reduce the incremental cost to businesses of adding employees or
Are targeted toward people who would be most likely to spend additional income"
See http://www.cbo.gov/publication/42717