CNN Political Ticker:
A leading congressional Democrat and Republican both expressed disappointment Sunday with the pace of the government's economic stimulus program, but offered differing views on whether it was a good idea.
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Spend faster. Yeah that really strikes a chord with me. That habit has plagued me all of my life. I am one of those who can have $1.00 in my pocket, or $1,000.00, and still spend it at exactly the same rate. Yeah it's really been a boon to my existence following this course. Now you want the government to practice this terribly flawed method to financial stability? Really?
The private sector? You mean the businesses that got us into this mess? The ones who are so against more government? Yeah, we need to take our cues from them about as much as a funeral needs a laugh track.
Dems: Stimulus Money Needs To Be Spent Faster
By whom?
Hire a new Czar :)
By me.
I'm sure there is no problem spending the stimulus money, it's what they're spending it on that should be cause for concern.
That, and the fact they gave it to the wrong people to start with.
Gave? The complaint is that it hasn't been given at all yet.
The solution to our economic problems is so simple. All Obama has to do is ask the Federal Reserve, the government bank where it keeps its vast reserves of cash, to give him a lot of money for whatever purposes he needs it. There is actually no limitation to the reserves because the Fed can just print as much as they want. In fact, if they printed enough, no one would ever have to work because we would all be rich. The greedy Republicans knew this but did not want to share, but Obama will help us at last.
"In fact, if they printed enough, no one would ever have to work because we would all be rich"
I really hope you aren't serious . . .
You are either being snarky or you flunked Economics 101.
If I received a 400 check but yet paid 1000 per week in taxes, how is that a stimulus?
So you think it is all about you.
If you are paying $1000.00 a week in taxes you are making way too much money.
Who are you to arbitrately pass judgement on how much one should be paid? Someone apparently is quite satisfied paying him that sort of salary, VOLUNTARILY, for his servces.
Its a voluntary transaction; what business do you have getting involved to fix compensation unless its for a publicly-funded position? (footnote: politician is the only job I can think where you can get that sort of government salary)
Zandi says the results of the stimulus package should be visible in the third and fourth quarters of this year in the form of people spending more money in shopping malls and elsewhere. This, he says, should convince businesses to scale back — but not end — their job cutting.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=106225555
Wow, you mean people will spend more money at shopping malls leading up to Christmas?
What a great economic mind.
We should use a Trillion Dollars to build a Trillion Wind Mills. We could have used them in the United States and sold them around the world.
Hey Iran you don't need Nuclear Material. We got A million WInd Mills you can put up in your wasteland.
We can retrofit GM plants to make Wind Mills instead. That would create a ton of jobs, for a extended period of time. After it's all built we have lower electricity bills and cleaner environment and something the rest of the world can buy from us.
Here is data on the Green Jobs that are to be created under the Stimulus Package:
http://www.healthnewsdigest.com/news/Environment_380/The_Stimulus_Package_and_Green_Jobs.shtml
Are jobs really created if they rely on Government to subsidze them?
I would like to see self sustaining jobs, not a version of welfare.
The Republicans didn't want any stimulus package and now they are saying it is not enough. I think the package stopped the ble.eding and we will begin to see the effects with in the next year. Had nothing be done we would be at 25% unemployment. By the way unemployment benefits actually help the economy get moving as well as food stamps. However the Republicans pulled the food stamps since they didn't understand it offered the best return on money.
Fiscal Economic Bank for the Buck
One year $ change in real GDP for a given $ reduction in federal tax revenue or increase in spending
Tax Cuts
Non-refundable Lump-Sum Tax Rebate 1.02
Refundable Lump-Sum Tax Rebate 1.26
Temporary Tax Cuts
Payroll Tax Holiday 1.29
Across the Board Tax Cut 1.03
Accelerated Depreciation 0.27
Permanent Tax Cuts
Extend Alternative Minimum Tax Patch 0.48
Make Bush Income Tax Cuts Permanent 0.29
Make Dividend and Capital Gains Tax Cuts Permanent 0.37
Cut in Corporate Tax Rate 0.30
Spending Increases
Extending UI Benefits 1.64
Temporary Increase in Food Stamps 1.73
General Aid to State Governments 1.36
Increased Infrastructure Spending 1.59
For those that don't understand the above figures - it is giving you the return on every $1 spent by the government. Thus, Food stamps (cut out by Republicans) have the greatest return and Unemployment benefits being extended have the second greatest, infrastructure 3rd and that is what the shovel ready projects are.
http://www.recovery.org/
LOL, if food stamps are the key to the economic fix . . . put everyone on food stamps.
BTW, you know that's a complete joke.
Obama did say things will get worse before they get better.
Republicans sitting on money is a big problem. SOme of them are waiting for Court Orders to do anything with the money. If your hungry and you have $8 and wait for 4 more hours to eat you will only be MORE HUNGRY.
Republicans are so not thinking the future. This time next year the economy will be totally different story. Technically speaking the recession has ended already. IT will take time, but by the time the mid term elections happen and things will get better. Economies take time to move.
It took us 10 years of horrible policy ( including Clinton ) and Bush's Rich boy Trillion dollar tax cut that helped to put this horrible economy in place.
Obama has been in office for 5 months, ROME can't be rebuilt in a day.
LOL to any who bought into the Stimulus Package:
"The White House expected the U.S. unemployment rate to peak at 8 percent when it worked with Congress to push through the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
Biden said most economic forecasts at the time about how bad unemployment would get were all "in the same range," although it is clear now they were too optimistic."
Give it time. Just give it time.
What, for all of us to be out of work?
Economists have argued all along that it was too small. And that's because the neo-cons screamed to high heaven as it was.
Paul Krugman has . . . I also know some of his great comments in the past.
As for too small, if these guys can't get a "small" stimulus up and running what makes you think they can handle a large one?
"To fight this recession the Fed needs more than a snapback; it needs soaring household spending to offset moribund business investment. And to do that, as Paul McCulley of Pimco put it, Alan Greenspan needs to create a housing bubble to replace the Nasdaq bubble."
- Paul Krugman, 2002
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/02/opinion/dubya-s-double-dip.html?scp=4&sq=krugman%20mcculley%20bubble&st=cse
And Bush said his 3 tax cuts were going to generate millions of jobs.
What is your point?
Of course the stimulus is working. Anytime the government borrows and spends it stimulates. But the question is, is it doing anything for the long term, or is it just propping up our sick, overly consumptive economy? I suspect the latter. Case in point - tax rebates. Just a waste. Most of it is being used to pay down debt, but even that which is spent only creates temporary retail jobs to handle additional sales while the money is being spent. Then the clerks are let go. Nothing has been created. No good has been done. The money could have been invested in alternative energy for the future, but we won't do that. We won't do long term anything.
We need to invest, to create infrastructure for the 21st century. We shouldn't be trying to patch up this broken down economy. We can't consume our way to prosperity. We need to build something that has value to civilization. I don't think credit swaps and derivatives pass muster. And look at all that money wasted in the health care system that produces no results.
Read Thomas Friedman's column today. We should be going all out to develop alternative energy. Instead, we're creating another Enron monster bubble with cap and trade.
We can't solve serious problems in this country, or seize opportunities for the future. I think we're toast. It happens to all empires. They become immobilized, unable to respond to changing times from the sheer weight of their entrenched institutions.
I guess you don't understand that the stimulus package was involved with building up the infrastructure.
Track the spending here: http://www.recovery.org/
Roads and bridges are in terrible shape across the country. Good thing the stimulus is coming to rebuild things.
Yeah I wondered how much longer we were going to
hear that only 10% of the stimulus money has been spent.
Up until the 2010 campaign season starts heating up.
Hey lets spend money we do not have faster....great idea.
That means we can get to borrowing more money we don't have faster . . . the Ds & Rs are running this country right into the ground.
People here think Ds are better but aren't smart enough to see they are both leading us to the same place at different speeds when it comes to bankruptcy.
exactly.
The narrow-minded will even paint you as a GOPer because of a disagreement in opinion with the Democratic agenda. Brainwashing to the two party system, the blogs are flooded with zombies of the Republi-cratic party.
Plllllleeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaassssssssssseeeeeeeeee!
Give me a break Dems, before you all voted for this . . . you all knew there was not going to be much money spent in year #1 because what you voted for had nothing to do with stimulus.
Obama also told us all that unemployment never hits 8% if you vote yes . . . how's that working out?
no he didn't
Here is the graph Obama used while selling this thing in January:
http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~cook/movabletype/mlm/stimulus-vs-unemployment-april.gif
molasses
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First Posted: 07- 5-09 05:17 PM | Updated: 07- 5-09 05:22 PM