TheRealMafoo said:
Rath said:
Ok without checking whether the statistics actually hold up or not (so assuming he is correct) he misses two important points I believe.
1) The stimulus helped the economy recover, therefore the costs of the stimulus are at least to some point offset by the stronger economy.
2) The stimulus spending wasn't a straight up loss. The GM deal is a good example of this, $50B outlay and now the govt owns about $100B of GM.
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A point he makes:
When Obama was pushing the stimulus, he said,
Then you get the argument, "well this is not a stimulus bill, this is a spending bill." Whaddya think a stimulus is? (Laughter.) That's the whole point. No, seriously. (Laughter.) That's the point. (Applause.)
So spending $572B in two years stimulates an economy, but spending $554B over six years ruins one?
Aren't these also the same folks who tell us how well JFK and LBJ ran the economy back in the roaring '60s? During the eight years of 1961-69, 46% of all federal spending was on national defense. During President Bush's eight years, defense spending did not even average 20% of federal outlays. Under JFK/LBJ, defense spending was 8%-9% of GDP. Under Bush, it was about 4%.
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Uh. Spending $572B in two years on stimulating the economy stimulates the economy.
Also comparing now to the cold war on defense spending is obviously going to stuff comparisons up.
