Monday marked the fifth anniversary of President Obama signing the $787 billion stimulus package—which turned out to be $830 billion—that was supposed to jumpstart the U.S. economy. Five years later, between half and three-fourths of the country thinks we are still in a recession.
Although the country officially exited the recession in July 2009, to millions of jobless Americans it still feels like a recession. Rasmussen reported last week that 50 percent think the country is still in a recession. A January Fox News poll found that 74 percent “say it still feels like the country is in a recession.” Other polls fell somewhere in between.
And given the difficulty in finding jobs—at 63 percent, the labor force participation rate is at its lowest in 36 years—who can blame people for thinking the country is still underwater? Rasmussen says that only 27 percent of consumers think the economy is getting better. Gallup says that nearly 25 percent of Americans claim jobs and unemployment are the most important problems facing the country.
The president’s Council of Economic Advisors is having none of this doom and gloom. It just released its annual report praising the five-year anniversary of the stimulus, “Thanks in significant part to the actions of President Obama, the economic picture today is much brighter (than 2009).”
The report then identifies many of the president’s other attempts to get America back to work.
“[T]he President built on this initial step (i.e., the stimulus), signing into law over a dozen fiscal measures aiming to speed job creation, including extending Emergency Unemployment Compensation, measures for teacher jobs, aid to states for Medicaid, a temporary 2 percent payroll tax cut for 160 million working Americans, an even greater allowance for businesses to write off the cost of investments when computing their tax liability (that is, ‘expensing’), the cash-for-clunkers program, an expanded homebuyer tax credit, additional business tax incentives and small business tax cuts, the HIRE Act tax credit, and incentives to hire veterans.”
If Keynesian economics worked, all of those spending programs, plus some $4 trillion from the Federal Reserve Bank, should have done it.
Now, if only those millions of thankless, jobless Americans would believe the president and the Council’s rosy scenarios, rather than their “lying” empty bank accounts.