On Wed, Jan 25, 2012 at 3:04 PM, Maureen <[email protected]> wrote: > > No, the money has not been spent. That's just another opposition lie.
Yeah, it's gone. In the lockbox so to say. The stimulus failed to stimulate, it was a colossal waste of money but Obama knew it wouldn't work: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/340286c8-4615-11e1-9592-00144feabdc0.html#ixzz1kVH4f3pe Senior economic advisers to Barack Obama, the then US president-elect, turned away from a supersized fiscal stimulus because they doubted its practicality, according to a December 2008 internal memo. The 57-page memo from Lawrence Summers, then the incoming director of the economic bureaucracy in the White House, lays out the thinking of the Obama administration in unprecedented detail. The memo was obtained by The New Yorker magazine. Mr Summers told the president that it would be hard to spend more than $300bn on government investment and anything above that would have to come from transfers to the states and tax cuts. He also said that a giant stimulus of more than $1,000bn aimed at rapidly reducing the unemployment rate would likely not accomplish the goal because of the impact it would have on markets. The memo sheds new light on a long-running controversy about whether the 2009 stimulus which became the $787bn American Recovery and Reinvestment Act failed to keep unemployment below 9 per cent because it was too small. It suggests that Mr Obamas economic advisers recognised that the economy needed a bigger boost, but did not think they could design one and feared a backlash from bond markets. While the most effective stimulus is government investment, it is difficult to identify feasible spending projects on the scale that is needed to stabilise the macroeconomy, Mr Summers wrote. To get the package to the requisite size, and also to address other problems, we recommend combining it with substantial state fiscal relief and tax cuts for individuals and businesses. The memo sets out four stimulus options ranging from $550bn to $890bn in size. Even based on assumptions about the crisis that turned out to be optimistic, Mr Summers called for a package considerably larger than $500bn-600bn, but said that an excessive recovery package could spook markets or the public and be counterproductive. Critics have argued that the decline in 10-year US Treasury yields to around 2 per cent showed that fears of a shock to the bond markets were exaggerated. The memo also shows that Mr Obamas advisers made a serious political misjudgment, believing that if they asked for too small a stimulus, it would be easy to go back to Congress and ask for more. It is easier to add down the road to insufficient fiscal stimulus than to subtract from excessive fiscal stimulus, the memo notes. Mr Obama has found it nearly impossible to persuade Congress to authorise any further stimulus spending. . > As for the money being wasted, tell that to all the people who are > working, those who got the tax refund, and those who are driving on > the roads and bridges being repaired. Again, just more opposition > spi ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Order the Adobe Coldfusion Anthology now! http://www.amazon.com/Adobe-Coldfusion-Anthology/dp/1430272155/?tag=houseoffusion Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/message.cfm/messageid:345794 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/unsubscribe.cfm
