Posted on 10/19/2012 4:09:47 PM PDT by HawkHogan
I'm new to the board, and I must admit, economic principles are not my strong point. I've been arguing with a buddy of mine, who claims that the stimulus saved us from a great depression, whereas I believe that the stimulus was filled with pork barrel spending and had minimal effect on the economy. I was doing a little bit of research, and found the article I posted, discussing various studies on the stimulus. Any economic experts, that can help me out with this debate?
We are experiencing the slowest recovery in more than a century. This is caused by the stimulus, and other Keynesian policies of the Obama administration. Any time you remove money from the economy and let the government distribute it, you will slow economic growth. The stimulus is causing the slow growth, not alleviating it.
Let’s start with the author of the article Ezra Klein, he started the group of reporters called “Joun-O-List” which was a group of reporters and journalists that banded together in 2008 with sole purpose of getting Butcrack 0bama elected.
We weren’ t headed for a another Great Depression, that was the media talking it up. According to all of the economists, the so-called “Great Recession” ended in June 2009 BEFORE the Stimulus was even doled out.
Only 6% of the money was used to pit a shovel in the ground.
Each dollar the govt spends, is a dollar less the taxpayers have to spend. This causes the crowding out effect: private investment is reduced. No net increase in investment; and actually, as resources are spent in less efficient sectors of the economy, national income is reduced. This is why we haven’t had any net increase in employment in this country. That’s how I understand it...
If the stimulus was so wonderful, why has the 0bama administration stopped publishing the mandatory quarterly reports?
Over 100 Criminal Probes Related to Stimulus Funding in the Department of Energy Alone
Thankfully, at least one man in the federal government has been awfully busy on behalf of the American taxpayer:
The Energy Department’s inspector general has launched more than 100 criminal investigations related to 2009 economic stimulus spending.
In written testimony prepared for delivery to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee today, Inspector General Gregory Friedman said the investigations have involved “various schemes, including the submission of false information, claims for unallowable or unauthorized expenses, and other improper uses of Recovery Act funds.”
So far, the investigations have led to five criminal prosecutions and brought in “over $2.3 million in monetary recoveries,” Friedman said.
Bear in mind that the Department of Energy only recieved $35 billion of the $787 billion allocated by the stimulus bill. It would be impossible to get a handle on how much criminal activity surrounds the stimulus bill, given that the federal government is not exactly known for aggressively policing fraud. Still, it sounds like the Department of Energy inspector general is doing yeoman’s work. If the schemes that he’s uncovered are anything to go by, the stimulus has likely produced a staggering amount of crime.
ineffective, unconstitutional, largely criminal. other than that, great.
GREEN SCAM: 80% Of Green Energy Loans Went To Obama Donors - 19 Companies Went Bust
For those who only hear about these failing companies one by one, the following is a list of all the clean energy companies supported by President Obama’s stimulus that are now failing or have filed for bankruptcy. The media hopes you’ve forgotten about all of them except Solyndra, but we haven’t.
Evergreen Solar SpectraWatt Solyndra (received $535 million) Beacon Power (received $43 million) AES’ subsidiary Eastern Energy Nevada Geothermal (received $98.5 million) SunPower (received $1.5 billion) First Solar (received $1.46 billion) Babcock & Brown (an Australian company which received $178 million) Ener1 (subsidiary EnerDel received $118.5 million) Amonix (received 5.9 million) The National Renewable Energy Lab Fisker Automotive Abound Solar (received $400 million) Chevy Volt (taxpayers basically own GM) Solar Trust of America A123 Systems (received $279 million) Willard & Kelsey Solar Group (received $6 million) Johnson Controls (received $299 million) Schneider Electric (received $86 million)
That’s 19 (that we know of so far).
Peter Schweizer details the startling extent of the cronyism that has pervaded President Obama’s “green jobs” push. According to Schweizer, 4 out of every 5 renewable energy companies backed by the Energy Department was “run by or primarily owned by Obama financial backers.”
Those companies’ “political largesse is probably the best investment they ever made in alternative energy,” Schweizer explains. “It brought them returns many times over.”
http://blog.heritage.org/2011/11/14/report-80-of-doe-green-energy-loans-went-to-obama-backers/
is your friend “juiced in” ?
My buddy is an Obamabot, who claims to be an independent. Thank you all for the links, I’m going to do a lot more research, so I can hammer him next time we talk.
He is utterly convinced the stimulus saved us from a Great Depression, and I just tell him it was a huge waste and hurt the economy, just like Obamacare.
FYI: Adjusted for inflation WWII cost 5 Trillion dollars.
Where did stimulus money really go?
When President Obama signed his economic stimulus plan into law on February 17, 2009, he promised it “includes help for those hardest hit by our economic crisis,” and “As a whole, this plan will help poor and working Americans.”
But the newest data on how the stimulus money was given out across the 50 states and the District of Columbia shows a perverse pattern: The states hardest hit by the recession received the least money. States with higher bankruptcy, foreclosure, and unemployment rates got less money. And lower-income states also received less.
Rather than helping out those in the toughest shape, it looks like Democrats ended up helping their supporters, including unions and many very wealthy supporters.
According to the Obama administration’s Recovery.gov, a total of $504 billion of federal contracts, grants, and loans to states and territories were awarded between February 17, 2009, and December 31, 2011. The amounts vary a lot across states, with the very lowest at $978 per capita in Virginia and the highest at $2,495 per capita in Alaska. The District of Columbia is the real winner at a whopping $7,603.
The transfers to the states having the least economic problems were large. The following relationships were statistically significant . . .
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/03/23/where-did-stimulus-money-really-go/
“The District of Columbia is the real winner at a whopping $7,603 per capita”
In the old days of corruption, they would at least send the money back to the districts and make the lobbyists pick it up there. Now, they just send it straight over to their DC office directly.
(you’re welcome. good luck)
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