The Stimulus Seems to have failed

bikerdruid said:
the stimulus was a failure, because the money went to the wrong people.
the money should have gone to the working class, who would spend it on goods and services, actually stimulating the economy.
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Ironically, that was the method favored by George Bush... I actually got a check in the mail.
 
And it just keeps getting worse:
The U.S. employment picture went from bad to ugly last month as employers added almost no new net jobs and the unemployment rate edged up for the third straight month, to 9.2%.

The report Friday from the Labor Department is sure to be a huge disappointment and will raise fresh questions about the sustainability of the recovery, now technically starting its third year.

Analysts had raised their job-growth forecasts for June to 100,000 or more in recent days, hopeful of a rebound after surprisingly few job gains in May, which many attributed to temporary factors such as Japan's earthquake and the spike in oil prices.

But, in fact, the growth of 54,000 jobs previously reported for May was revised down Friday to just 25,000. And the nation's payrolls followed that with a barely perceptible 18,000 new net jobs last month.
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Wages are falling, hours worked is falling... what a mess.
 
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UndercoverElephant said:
You have got to be kidding me. You are asking me for evidence that Al-Qaeda's primary goal was to bring down the United States? What else do you think their primary goal might have been?
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Can you link to any al Qaeda or OBL writings that call "bringing down the United states" as their primary goal?

The long-term goal of al Qaeda is restoring the Caliphate.
 
Your stimulus dollars at work …

http://hotair.com/archives/2011/07/07/too-bad-to-check-project-gunrunner-was-funded-by-the-stimulus/

Project Gunrunner was funded by … the stimulus

… snip …

You’ll find complete PDF and text versions of the final stimulus bill right here. Scroll down to page 16 (of 407!) in the PDF version and behold:

For an additional amount for ‘‘State and Local Law Enforcement Assistance’’, $40,000,000, for competitive grants to provide assistance and equipment to local law enforcement along the Southern border and in High-Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas to combat criminal narcotics activity stemming from the Southern border, of which $10,000,000 shall be transferred to ‘‘Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Salaries and Expenses’’ for the ATF Project Gunrunner.
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… snip …

Says Ben Domenech, in a stroke of perfect black humor: “Shovel ready.”
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Now Obama is claiming he didn't know anything about Project Gunrunner. But didn't he sign the Stimulus Bill? Or are you Obamaphiles now claiming he didn't read the bill before signing it? :D
 
WildCat said:
Can you link to any al Qaeda or OBL writings that call "bringing down the United states" as their primary goal?

The long-term goal of al Qaeda is restoring the Caliphate.
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OK, I'll retract that. The primary goal of Al-Qaeda may well have been to restore the Caliphate, but bringing down the US came a close second...

Although this debate is really quite bizarre, given that we are talking about the organisation which brought down the World Trade Centre. I believe that Osama Bin Laden must have viewed the current predicament of the US as a victory. This wasn't just an act of terrorism - the purpose was not merely to instill fear in the US population, but to cause serious economic damage.
 
More good Stimulus news, folks:

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/june-jobs-report-unemployment-rate-92-percent-18000/story?id=14020360

The Labor Department's employment report, released this morning, showed the unemployment rate ticked up to 9.2 percent, with employers adding only 18,000 jobs in June, well below economists' expectations of 110,000 jobs.

The May unemployment rate hit 9.1 percent, after nonfarm payroll employment grew by a modest 54,000 jobs -- which the Labor Department revised down to 25,000 -- well below the 165,000 jobs economists expected to be added.

... snip ...

While the president talks about investing in infrastructure [BAC - shovel ready projects? ;)], the top Republican in the country, House Speaker John Boehner, talks about cutting government spending.

"Today's report is more evidence that the misguided 'stimulus' spending binge, excessive regulations, and an overwhelming national debt continue to hold back private-sector job creation in our country," said Boehner in a statement.
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When will the liberals here at JREF admit the Stimulus was a failure? :D
 
BeAChooser said:
When will the liberals here at JREF admit the Stimulus was a failure? :D
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as i said before, and you ignored, the stimulus was a failure because the money was given to the wrong parties.
it should not have been given to the rich...it should have been given to the poor, so they could spend it and make the economy work.
as anyone here actually argued that the stimulus was not a failure?
 
http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/170309-plouffe-says-jobs-rate-not-key-in-2012

07/07/11

President Obama’s senior political adviser David Plouffe said Wednesday that people won’t vote in 2012 based on the unemployment rate.
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Well he'd better hope so ... :rolleyes:

What was that phrase democrat's used during Bill Clinton's run for office in 1992 against Bush? "It's the economy, stupid"?

I'm curious why democrats don't think that logic applies now?

But I have an even better phrase to use ..

It's the stimulus, stupid. That gets to the core of the problem. :D
 
bikerdruid said:
as i said before, and you ignored, the stimulus was a failure because the money was given to the wrong parties.
it should not have been given to the rich...it should have been given to the poor, so they could spend it and make the economy work.
as anyone here actually argued that the stimulus was not a failure?
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Actually, it's not just that. It's that the stimulus wasn't long enough/big enough to really matter.

I find it incredibly ironic that BaC continues to post news articles about just how bad the economy is floundering currently. Hey, BaC, you do know the stimulus ran out a year or so ago, right? That these news reports are actually evidence that the economy is dragging, in part because the stimulus ran out?

Look at what the economy was doing this time last year - stabilizing, if not attempting to turn around. Ya know, when the stimulus funds were still being spent. What's it doing now, now that tax cuts for the wealthy have been extended and the budget hawks in the Tea Party are pushing for austerity measures? It's decidedly slipping back into recession.





BaC: as for Project Gunrunner...show me in the stimulus package where any specific Project Gunrunner was named, and I"ll admit you may just have a point. As it is, I'd be the stimulus package simply outlaid monies to be spent according to the responses on a specific form (or set of forms). Obama signed the law into effect, providing the monies. Other bureaucrats decided after the fact what projects to fund.
 
bikerdruid said:
as i said before, and you ignored, the stimulus was a failure because the money was given to the wrong parties.
it should not have been given to the rich...it should have been given to the poor, so they could spend it and make the economy work.
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You communists have such trouble keeping track of money. :D

Or are you saying that the hundreds of billions of dollars that local and state governments received and then used to "save" teacher and other state/local employee jobs during the recession went to the "rich"? Then your definition of rich includes government employees?

Or are you saying that middle income people (you know, most of whom earn well under $250,000 a year), who got another big chunk of the money (about $275 billion) in the form of tax cuts as part of the stimulus, are "rich"? I see.

Or are you saying that the victims of the recession who were helped by another hundred billion dollars (or so) that was allocated to unemployment insurance, subsidizing health care, food stamps and job training should be considered "rich"? Really?

And what about all the folks who built the *infrastructure* that was part of the stimulus (you know, the guys with the ready shovels)? You apparently consider them "rich"? That so?

Because unless you consider all those folks "rich", I'm afraid I really don't know who you are referring to as having gotten the bulk of the stimulus money. Maybe you can be a little more specific, bd? :D
 
BeAChooser said:
Or are you saying that middle income people (you know, most of whom earn well under $250,000 a year), who got another big chunk of the money (about $275 billion) in the form of tax cuts as part of the stimulus, are "rich"? I see.
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$250,000??????
if you think that someone that makes this kind of money is not rich, you are deluded.
there are people in america that are homeless and have trouble feeding their families.
are you really that clueless or insensitive?
 
BobTheDonkey said:
Hey, BaC, you do know the stimulus ran out a year or so ago, right?
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Did it, BTD?

http://www.fitsnews.com/2011/03/29/unspent-sc-stimulus-funds/

Unspent SC “Stimulus” Funds?
March 29, 2011
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http://articles.orlandosentinel.com...timulus-money-road-projects-american-recovery

$4.6 billion in federal stimulus money stays unspent in Florida

May 23, 2011
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http://www.wctv.tv/home/headlines/122760029.html

May 29, 2011

Unspent Stimulus Funds
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http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2011/jul/08/state-agency-risks-losing-unspent-federal-stimulus/

State agency risks losing unspent federal stimulus money

July 8, 2011

California's Emergency Management Agency is finally distributing federal stimulus funds, but the agency needs to monitor spending closely to use all the money by its 2013 deadline, the state auditor said in a report issued yesterday.
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No, this http://www.recovery.gov/Transparency/fundingoverview/Pages/fundingbreakdown.aspx shows that over $100 billion dollars in stimulus money has still not been "paid out".

BobTheDonkey said:
BaC: as for Project Gunrunner...show me in the stimulus package where any specific Project Gunrunner was named, and I"ll admit you may just have a point.
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Post #1866 quoted the Stimulus bill and I highlighted the portion of a sentence in the bill where it specifically mentioned "ATF Project Gunrunner". Did you not bother to read that post before responding?
 
bikerdruid said:
Originally Posted by BeAChooser
Or are you saying that middle income people (you know, most of whom earn well under $250,000 a year), who got another big chunk of the money (about $275 billion) in the form of tax cuts as part of the stimulus, are "rich"? I see.

$250,000??????
if you think that someone that makes this kind of money is not rich, you are deluded.
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But most of those who got those stimulus tax "cuts" weren't making $250,000 or anything even close to it. In fact, most of that tax "cut" was in the form of tax *credits* to folks who paid no federal taxes because they didn't earn enough to even pay income taxes. Surely you knew that?

In fact, according to a chart in this: http://www.ctj.org/pdf/obamastimulus.pdf and http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/numbers/displayatab.cfm?DocID=3057 , over 50% of the total tax "cut" went to those in the bottom 20% of income (earning under $17,000 a year). Another 36% went to go to those in the second quartile (i.e., earning between $17,000 and $34,000 a year). And 11% went to those in the middle quartile (earning between $34,000 and $60,000 a year). In fact, you have to be in the upper 5% to earn over $200,000 a year. So only a small fraction of what you term "rich" received benefit from the stimulus tax "cuts". So unless you are prepared to admit that you consider people making over $17,000 a year "rich", you really don't have an argument. :D
 
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Now here's a very interesting read. Here's a few excerpts …

http://abriefhistory.org/?p=2810

Where did the stimulus go ?

Two distinguished Stanford professors of Economics have published an analysis on where the stimulus money went. The results are not surprising but the details are interesting.

During the recent recession, the U.S. Congress passed two large economic stimulus programs. President Bush’s February 2008 program totaled $152 billion. President Obama’s bill, enacted a year later, was considerably larger at $862 billion. Neither worked. After more than three years since the crisis flared up, unemployment is still very high and economic growth is weak. Why have such large sums of money failed to stimulate the economy? To answer this question, we must look at where the billions of stimulus dollars went and how they were used.

… snip …

To sum up: the federal government borrowed funds that it mainly sent to households and to state and local governments. Only an immaterial amount was used for federal purchases of goods and services. The borrowed funds were mainly used by households and state and local governments to reduce their own borrowing. In effect, the increased net borrowing at the federal level was matched by reduced net borrowing by households and state and local governments.

So there was little if any net stimulus. The irony is that basic economic theory and practical experience predicted this would happen. If policymakers had only remembered what Milton Friedman, Franco Modigliani, and Ned Gramlich had said, we might have avoided these two extremely costly policy failures.
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If only folks would listen to authorities like this, rather than socialists/communists who promise "hope and change" but don't understand even basic economics. :D
 
BeAChooser said:
If only folks would listen to authorities like this, rather than socialists/communists who promise "hope and change" but don't understand even basic economics. :D
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It is not communists/socialists who are calling the shots here. It is the bankers and the large corporations. These people ought to be enemies of communists and capitalists alike. They are parasites.
 
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