Obama's Stimulus bill has been, for the most part, viewed as a good thing or a bad thing. There are hardly any people who have a viewpoint in-between. Probably due to the drastic measures that the stimulus bill carried out.
The stimulus bill, officially passed in February of 2009, was the largest expanse of government spending the world has ever seen. The WORLD!? Ok, it's one thing to spend so much money that it's a "country record", but it's a totally different thing when you start setting global records. Overall, the bill has cost us somewhere in the high $800 billions. Not only that, but all of this spending has done very little to stimulate the economy. The unemployment rate is still inching towards the double-digits, and our national debt is increasing by the day.
I believe this is a problem with the idea that government wants to "regulate the economy". In the past, economic efforts of the government to regulate the economy by taking money from the wealthy and giving it to the unemployed has had almost no effect - just look at the FDR time period. He tried to do the same thing to "jumpstart" the economy by throwing around billions of taxpayer's dollars, and all it did was make things worse. So why Obama and his administration decided we should give it another go around is beyond me.
This article says that even the Obama administration admits that it "guessed wrong" on the stimulus package. Originally designed to get Americans back to work by saving/creating 3 million jobs, now they are having to settle with only 600,000 jobs (about 1/5 of their original goal). The stimulus bill has proven to be nothing more than wasteful spending. Yes, it provided short term relief - that kind of money should. But it neglected the long term economy to make things look better at that point in time.
I think that it is ridiculous that we spend that much money in efforts to stimulate the economy and it actually has had little effect. I do think that Obama should have looked at the economic hitsory of the US, and based on that history, made a more educated and informed decision.
ReplyDeleteI wish that Obama's policies would have been more successful in creating jobs, but at least it has done something. What do you propose the government should have done? They can't just sit by and do nothing to help Americans in these tough economic times. Do you think it is wrong that the government wants to regulate the economy more? In Europe, and in some Asian countries, an economy that is not completely controlled by, but rather guided by the government has proved to be rather successful.
ReplyDeleteNo, I don't think it is wrong that the government wants to regulate the economy, I just think that the way it is trying to do so is ineffective right now. I would actually go as far to say that our economy needs some government interference, just not to the extremes that are being used today. Thank you for your insight, I honestly see your point and it makes perfect sense.
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