Stimulus: Progress or broken promise?

CNN Money ^ | July 6, 2009 | By David Goldman

[Oldeconomybuyer]

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Nearly five months after President Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), a still-worsening economy has many wondering if stimulus is a bunch of baloney.

In February, the stimulus bill was passed with the promise that funds would be paid out quickly to save or create 750,000 jobs by early August. Without it, the Obama administration said, unemployment could rise to 9% in 2010.

With August quickly approaching, $56.3 billion, or 10% of stimulus funds have been paid out, and the unemployment rate has already risen to 9.5%.

"This form of fiscal stimulus will have no meaningful effect on the economy whatsoever, because they don't have a magic wand to create purchasing power," said J.D. Foster, economic fellow at the conservative-leaning Heritage Foundation. "Even if you do think stimulus is effective, what they're arguing is $56 billion is really effective. This is pure spin."

[Oldeconomybuyer]

"Marxists get up early to further their cause. We must get up even earlier to defend our freedom."

-Margaret Thatcher-

[FromLori]

cnn (communist news network) oh my they figured out he really isn’t “the one” snicker doubt it but surprised to see them question the obammessiah

[greatplains]

Don’t worry, they’ll quickly find a way to grovel back to his feet.

[kromike]

"Stimulus: Progress or broken promise?"

How about "Stimulus: Rank Amateur Naivete & Sheer Economic Ignorance".

[TwelveOfTwenty]

"The stimulus package is helping with job creation, but the job loss has been a lot bigger than the administration envisioned," said Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research. "What they inherited was worse than they thought -- we'll probably be going over 10% in the fall."

Hey Dean, the Democrat Congress inherited 4.5% unemployment from the GOP in 2007. Obama inherited 6.8% unemployment from that Congress, of which he was a member, in 2009.

As for the deficit, a major reason Obama inherited that from his predecessor, is because Bush inherited this from his predecessor.