A dismal and expensive failure
The first anniversary of the passage of the so-called "Obama Stimulus Bill" recently occurred. The bill, to date, has been an overwhelming and very, very expensive failure. According to factcheck.org, a non-partisan organization, the stimulus bill originally cost about $787 billion.
Recently, however, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office revised the cost upward to $862 billion - more than $10,000 per American family. So, what did President Barack Obama promise us and what were we supposed to get for our $862 billion?
President Obama promised unemployment would not rise above 8 percent. One year later, unemployment is close to 10 percent.President Obama promised his stimulus would create 3.5 million jobs by the end of 2010. Since he signed the stimulus bill, we have lost 2.8 million jobs. President Obama promised the stimulus would create construction, manufacturing and teaching jobs. Since it was signed, we have lost 712,000 construction jobs, lost 847,000 manufacturing jobs and lost 55,000 education jobs.
President Obama promised that the stimulus bill would shepherd in the new, green economy. This actually is true, but it spurred the growth in China, not here at home. According to the Investigative Reporting Workshop at American University, the stimulus bill provided some $2 billion for wind turbine technology, and nearly 80 percent of that has been given to foreign producers.
President Obama promised the stimulus would have accountability, yet billions of dollars were allocated to non-existent congressional districts. In fact, the Government Accounting Office reported that keeping track of stimulus money and the effectiveness of that money has been very difficult and questions remain about how to count jobs (what does "jobs saved" mean, anyway?) and measure performance.
Quite a track record after just one year. Yet week after week, President Obama and his many mouthpieces continue to tout the number of jobs saved or created by the stimulus. He even claimed this boondoggle prevented the next depression.
To think that the government can solve the unemployment problem by spending this kind of money is ignoring the fundamental principles of a free market at best, and is ridiculously naive at worst.
One year later, we are left with a huge deficit to pass on to our children and grandchildren. We are left with millions of Americans seeking jobs that are not there. One year later, we are left with a stimulus plan that was a dismal and expensive failure.
- Doug Huber's blog
- Login or register to post comments
-
Hogwash:
I know that a large percentage of the people of St. Charles County are more conservative and probably Republican, like I used to be. It is papers like this and people like Doug Huber who have turned me against the Republican Party of “NO !!!”
Doug and those other Lonesome Rhodes wannabes take facts out of context and try to make it sound like the present mess we are in is all Obama’s fault. People would do well to watch “The Warning”, a show on PBS that documents the attempt of Brooksley Born who headed the CFTC from 1996 to 1998, to begin to regulate the derivatives market and “who not only warned of the potential for economic meltdown in the late 1990s, but also tried to convince the country's key economic powerbrokers to take actions that could have helped avert the crisis."
In 1998 after two congressional hearings, as Greenspan, Robert Rubin and Larry Summers were running Born out of Washington DC, the country had its first financial meltdown when the LTCM, the first company to come up with derivatives, teetered on default of over a trillion dollars of paper. Greenspan and Rubin got 14 banks to put up a combined total of 3.5 billion dollars to cover the loss. Then they swept everything under the rug.
The financial problems we are facing are not over. Greece’s financial problem because of default swaps to make their economy more loan worthy has been hidden until now. Goldman Sacs is one of the culprits who has layered their problem in phony paper and default swaps that are now coming to the end of their term. Now no bank will help them. Portugal, Italy,Ireland, Greece and Spain, known as the 'PIIGS' are all in the same mess. This will affect all of Europe’s and America’s economy.
We need to quit blaming this problem on government and put it back on the shoulders of the financial institutions and their leaders who created it. Greenspan is a broken man who admitted he was wrong. Why can’t we do the same thing and tell our congress to get together and solve this problem.