Stimulus signed 5 years ago today -- still waiting on recovery
- Thread starter Pointgold
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Obama promised the sun and the moon and the stars.
That was the day, five years ago, when he signed the $800 billion “American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.”
President Modesty called it “the most sweeping economic recovery package in our history.”
He promised “unprecedented transparency and accountability.”
He claimed the spending would lift “two million Americans from poverty.”
The actual cost of the $800 billion pork-laden stimulus has ballooned to nearly $2 trillion.
At the time of the law’s signing, the unemployment rate hovered near 8 percent.
Obama’s egghead economists projected that the jobless rate would never rise above 8 percent and would plunge to 5 percent by December 2013.
The unemployment rate for black Americans is 12.1 percent: nearly double the national rate. The Obama campaign excoriated President George W. Bush when it exceeded 10 percent under his watch. The black teen jobless rate is now a whopping record 38 percent.
50 million Americans remain below the poverty level.
47 million are now on food stamps, a third more than when Obama first took office in the halcyon days of Hope and Change.
After $150 billion in spending on green energy boondoggles, what does the White House have to show for it?
32 Obama-backed environmental firms have gone bankrupt as of February 2014.
These include crony-clogged Solyndra at a cost to taxpayers of $535 million; Beacon Power, $240 million; Abound Solar, $400 million-plus; Fisker Auto, $529 million; A123, $250 million; ECOtality, $100 million; and Ener1, $118.5 million.
In addition, 22 other Obama green energy projects are now in dire financial trouble.
http://www.yourhoustonnews.com/courier/opinion/five-years-later-how-s-that-wreckovery-working-out/article_7c9afd3d-af0d-5f8a-b8b3-255a03309d46.html
zappasguitar
Well-known member
The U.S. unemployment rate is down, but that is because many Americans have given up or — better yet — are struggling to find full-time work.
The unemployment rate has dropped more than 40% of the way back to its pre-recession level, but the employment-to-population ratio is closer to its trough than its pre-recession peak. In English: fewer Americans are looking for employment.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2013/03/08/unemployment-rate-down-as-americans-give-up-on-work/
zappasguitar
Well-known member
Maybe someday all those business owners who SWORE lowering their taxes would lead to increased jobs will actually get around to CREATING some.
Then why is food stamps/disability/entitlement use increasing?
Didn't Pelosi say they create prosperity?
Why, yes. That's right. What the hell was I thinking?
Maybe they would, if there was some reassurance that regulation would remain stable.
christiefan915
Catalyst
Tax cuts have been in effect since 2001. Where are the jobs?
christiefan915
Catalyst
AND the thousands of jobs that were supposed to come about in the 8-9 years before the stimulus. If there was poor job growth since 2000 even though tax cuts have been in effect since 2001, what's the point of keeping tax cuts for the rich?
Seems like they were filled in the years between 2001 until the collapse in 2008. What is different since then? We passed a nice fat stimulus full of "shovel ready jobs" only to have the very man who promoted it to joke about how shovelless it really was. The only thing we've been shoveling is the nonsense about jobs that make us wear our hip waders.
Did you ask Obama and Harry Reid that when they helped extend them?
Of course not. Nor has she researched the cost of new regulations on businesses. It's far easier to look at meme images with bumper sticker style nonsense about the "1%" and opine on how greedy others are.
“What makes this recovery plan so important is not just that it will create or save three and a half million jobs over the next two years,” Obama said when he signed the bill.
The most recent report by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, released in 2012,said the stimulus package essentially got a maximum 1.5 million more Americans working and added a maximum 1.9 million full-time-equivalent jobs.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/02/17/five-year-anniversary-obamas-stimulus-renews-partisan-fight-over-jobs-economy/
The most recent report by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, released in 2012,said the stimulus package essentially got a maximum 1.5 million more Americans working and added a maximum 1.9 million full-time-equivalent jobs.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/02/17/five-year-anniversary-obamas-stimulus-renews-partisan-fight-over-jobs-economy/
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