I'll be up front - if I thought the stimulus was working I would support it. But the fact is, from the beginning, I didn't like the idea of it. I understand the concept of spending money to make money and encouraging growth and whatnot, as we saw with the Great Depression, and truncating the economy enough to prevent utter collapse. The problem here, in my view, is that creating the TARP money literally from scratch seemed, and still seems, too precarious a risk.
Now, I will admit, for all the bloviating that is going on about the stimulus working or not working on the part of its supporters and detractors, it may be too soon to actually say one way or the other.
But, as I said in previous posts, the facts do not seem to support the argument that the stimulus is really working.
Take this report, which shows that 49 of 50 states have lost jobs since the stimulus was enacted. Yes, it's from the republican side of the Ways and Means Committee, but I could not navigate my way through the obtuse .gov website to find the raw data. But, that's beyond the point, because despite the blatantly bias opening paragraph, the numbers in the table are the numbers in the table regardless. 2.7 million jobs have been lost, which is no where near the projected 3.5 million jobs gained - that's 2.7 million in the wrong direction. Granted, we've got a little over a year to go for the projections to pan out, but it's gone from creating 3.5 million jobs to over 6 million by December 2010 to reach the projected goal.
Also, being the conservative that I am, I obviously don't trust the government. Which, again, caused concern when they decided to go ahead and ram the stimulus through guaranteeing it would all be paid back. My distrust was only more galvanized when bigwigs were hand over hefty bonuses for their greed. And now, the reports are saying the people in charge aren't sure the bailout money will actually be paid back in full. Now, given the economic climate, it's to be expected there would be some defaults, but the uncertainty of how great it my be is quite unsettling.
Furthermore, when I hear about a few thousand jobs being "created," or more likely, "saved," here and there, I find it hard to believe that that is an indicator that the stimulus is working, especially when compared to the hundreds of thousands of jobs lost at the same time. It's still a net loss.
I realize that I may sound like an alarmist about all this, but the numbers are what the numbers are. I hope I'm wrong and I hope that in a stroke of economic luck the economy turns around and I have to eat all my words and stimulus works and all it's detractors get embarrassed. Because, in the end, I'd rather be humbled than keep feeling like I might not have a job tomorrow, and if indeed I don't, that I won't be able to find one shortly thereafter.
Now, I will admit, for all the bloviating that is going on about the stimulus working or not working on the part of its supporters and detractors, it may be too soon to actually say one way or the other.
But, as I said in previous posts, the facts do not seem to support the argument that the stimulus is really working.
Take this report, which shows that 49 of 50 states have lost jobs since the stimulus was enacted. Yes, it's from the republican side of the Ways and Means Committee, but I could not navigate my way through the obtuse .gov website to find the raw data. But, that's beyond the point, because despite the blatantly bias opening paragraph, the numbers in the table are the numbers in the table regardless. 2.7 million jobs have been lost, which is no where near the projected 3.5 million jobs gained - that's 2.7 million in the wrong direction. Granted, we've got a little over a year to go for the projections to pan out, but it's gone from creating 3.5 million jobs to over 6 million by December 2010 to reach the projected goal.
Also, being the conservative that I am, I obviously don't trust the government. Which, again, caused concern when they decided to go ahead and ram the stimulus through guaranteeing it would all be paid back. My distrust was only more galvanized when bigwigs were hand over hefty bonuses for their greed. And now, the reports are saying the people in charge aren't sure the bailout money will actually be paid back in full. Now, given the economic climate, it's to be expected there would be some defaults, but the uncertainty of how great it my be is quite unsettling.
Furthermore, when I hear about a few thousand jobs being "created," or more likely, "saved," here and there, I find it hard to believe that that is an indicator that the stimulus is working, especially when compared to the hundreds of thousands of jobs lost at the same time. It's still a net loss.
I realize that I may sound like an alarmist about all this, but the numbers are what the numbers are. I hope I'm wrong and I hope that in a stroke of economic luck the economy turns around and I have to eat all my words and stimulus works and all it's detractors get embarrassed. Because, in the end, I'd rather be humbled than keep feeling like I might not have a job tomorrow, and if indeed I don't, that I won't be able to find one shortly thereafter.
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