U.S. Economy Gets Lift From StimulusLooks like we'll be able to watch the naysayers eat a little crow on how wrong they were on President Obama's $787 billion stimulus package. Hey, if the Murdoch Wall Street Journal can break down and acknowledge the truth there is at least some hope for the rest of them.
WASHINGTON -- Government efforts to funnel hundreds of billions of dollars into the U.S. economy appear to be helping the U.S. climb out of the worst recession in decades.
Did you happen to remember that $288 billion, or a whopping 35% of the $787 billion were tax cuts? Yeah, I told you that back in April on tax day. It states that in the WSJ article, too. Actually the article points out that only $60 billion of the $288 billion in tax cuts have been doled out. Of course it also states that only $84 billion of the remaining $499 billion in spending has been spent.
So how is the stimulus stimulating if we've only used a fraction of it? As the article states, "Economists say the money out the door -- combined with the expectation of additional funds flowing soon -- is fueling growth above where it would have been without any government action." And it also points out that "the 1% contraction in the second quarter would have been far worse, possibly as much as 3.2%, if not for the stimulus" and that "for the third quarter, economists at Goldman Sachs & Co. predict the U.S. economy will grow by 3.3%. "Without that extra stimulus, we would be somewhere around zero."
The stimulus package also extended unemployment benefits - and made the first $2,400 tax exempt - but of course most importantly, it stopped the hemorrhaging of job losses the Bush Recession of 2007-2009 left us with.
But anyway, it's always good to see wingnuts eat a little crow. Most of them will continue to deny the obvious but that's not surprising and it's easy now to debunk. You can just refer them to the Murdoch WSJ for those facts.
