Zombie Rush the Stimulus Package...don't read it, just pass it!

I'm surprised the nobody pointed out that it took Obama 4 full days to sign this bill that needed to be passed hours after being finalized.

 

Over 500k private sector jobs lost in May while deficits and debt continue to skyrocket.

Stimulus, my ass. Amost 3 million jobs lost since Obama took office, and no end in sight.

U.S. private sector axes 532,000 jobs in May

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090603/bs_nm/us_usa_economy_employment_adp

 

Why are we even referring to this as a "stimulus package"?

It clearly isn't, and never was a "stimulus" package.

We had to hurry up, rush, and pass this "stimulus" package, yet several months later, only ~6% of the "stimulus" package has been spent.

It was clearly a political ploy by the democrats, using scare tactics, to get their programs passed for increasing the size of the government.

 

Great, start on it sooner than later. But don't use scare tactics to get pet-project spending bills passed. Don't try to force congress to pass bills they haven't even read.

We're starting to see some news that might suggest the recession is at least slowing down. This with only about $20billion of the "stimulus" package spent? Maybe the democrats' approach to the problem wasn't the necessary solution.

The government should give the taxpayers all of that money back.


** I will concede that perhaps the psychological effect of knowing the money is available and coming has helped. But I'm not convinced that individuals would start to make home purchases (and there has been positive data in home sales) because they know the government is going to fun pet-projects.

 

You can't project your own belief ("fun pet-projects") on everyone and then use that to determine what the psychological effect might be. Considering Obama's high approval rating, it's more likely that people see it as stimulus than agree with you that it's corruption/pork.

Whether they are right or you are right, the question is what most people believe.

 

Minstrel, you're smart enough to separate the man and his policies. While President Obama is personally very popular (60%+), his specific policy poll numbers are significantly lower and almost all below 50%. And insofar as the "stimulus" package, the last poll numbers I saw was that the bill had a popularity rating in the mid 30s.

 

The "popularity" of the stimulus package seems to vary from poll to poll, based on wording. But more importantly, I wasn't commenting on how popular his stimulus plan was. I was commenting on how people see it...whether they actually see it as a stimulus plan, or as pork/corruption (as blazerboy and various others do).

People can view it as a stimulus (government spending to inject cash into the economy) and still be against it, so I don't think polls on the plan tell us what people consider it (stimulus or pork). Considering most people are high on Obama (as a leader, not just as a person, since he also does well in things like whether he's handling the economy well and whether the country is on the right track), I think it's more likely that they see it as stimulus, not as pork. In other words, considering that most people believe in Obama as a President, I think it's more likely that they believe the plan is what he says it is, rather than a deception.

That's not relevant to whether the "stimulus bill" is right or wrong, but is relevant to any "psychological benefits" of it, that blazerboy alluded to.

 

If there were any phychological benefits to the "stimulus" package, it's being pretty well hidden. We've lost almost 2MM jobs since it was passed and President Obama is talking about worse times ahead. At some point, this situation can't be "the other guy's fault".

 

I have no idea whether there is one or not.

At some point, certainly. Where that point is, isn't exactly clear. That said, I'm not one who blames the economic crisis on Bush. I certainly don't think, though, that it is now "on Obama" five months into inheriting a financial mess that economists were projecting turn-around to be in 2010 at the very earliest.

The second derivative of jobs (the rate of job loss) has slowed down, which is one good sign. The crisis hasn't reached the apocalyptic nightmare proportions some were forecasting in October of last year and economists now don't seem to believe it will. It is "merely" really bad. So while I can sympathize with concerns about running up debt, the crisis doesn't seem to have worsened under Obama. Whether it has gotten better that it would under someone else, or minus the stimulus, is impossible to say. Ultimately, Obama will be graded at the next election on results.

 

Actually, it seems like a recession, which is a normal part of the business cycle.