Organizing for America: Road to Recovery

[alexey]

Here is some info posted on Obama's site... David Plouffe is back heh. Sorry about the extra-wide format.

http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/recoveryanniversary/

One year in, the evidence is clear – and growing by the day – that the Recovery Act is working to cushion the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression and lay a new foundation for economic growth.

• According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, the Recovery Act is already responsible for as many as 2.4 million jobs through the end of 2009
  
• As a result, job losses are a fraction of what they were a year ago, before the Recovery Act began
  

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act:

• Cut taxes for 95 percent of working families through the Making Work Pay tax credit
  
• Cut taxes for small businesses
  
• Provided loans to over 42,000 small businesses
  
• Funded over 12,500 transportation construction projects nationwide, ranging from highway construction to airport improvement projects
  
• Made multi-billion dollar investments in innovation, science and technology that are laying the foundation for our 21st century economy
  
• Provided critical relief for state governments facing record budget shortfalls, including help to prevent cuts to Medicaid and creating or saving over 300,000 education jobs
  

Economists on the left and the right have stated that the Recovery Act has helped avert an even worse economic disaster.

[Chump Bailey]

Road to recovery - doubtful...

[Tulane Skins Fan]

Road to recovery - doubtful...

Good post.

Pictures say a thousand words though.

[SkinsHokieFan]

This graph seems a bit more powerful to me

And I agree, graphs and pictures do say 1000 words

[Kilmer17]

Obama is hemmoraging. The only road they have left is go back into full campaign mode and hope people buy back into the hope and change rhetoric.

[sacase]

Or maybe the economy shed enough jobs to get to an equalibrium.

[LaxBuddy21]

Considering the economy ALWAYS runs in cycles, the guy who is on the down cycle gets the blame and the guy on the up cycle gets the praise like either of them actually had something to do with it! I see this as the equilibrium phase. Give it another year or two and we will start moving back up. Then we will forget all the stupid things we did as a country to make this down swing so bad and will set ourselves up for another big fall in 10-20 years.

[Burgold]

This graph seems a bit more powerful to me

And I agree, graphs and pictures do say 1000 words

Except that graph is pure speculation. No one can say with real certainty what the job situation would have been without the stim and certainly no one knows what it will look like years down the road.

So, one graph deals with the present and actual numbers and another deals with a series of projections.

[Koolblue13]

Is it even possible yet to tell if the great money flush cleared the drain yet?

Also, aren't the longer range effects, what will tell of it's actual effectiveness? For example, domestic jobs created vs. inflation.

[alexey]

This graph seems a bit more powerful to me

And I agree, graphs and pictures do say 1000 words

Yeah, in the speech today Obama said that they initially underestimated how bad thing were going. Obviously that mistake doesn't tell us much about the effectiveness of the stimulus.

[alexey]

Obama is hemmoraging. The only road they have left is go back into full campaign mode and hope people buy back into the hope and change rhetoric.

I get an impression that his strategy involves exposing Republican obstructionism by finally following up on his "transparency" promises. I am very curious about that health care summit thing.

[Thiebear]

I believe everyone said the Obama Admin should not come out after a year and at 10% unemployment and say:

We have created or saved 2million jobs. AND the way we report it has been destroyed by USA today and the NYTimes and the AP.

Not only that but if you look at the recovery website that lists it all, there are districts that don't even exist.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Keep working at it and we should be fine if we don't spend ourselves into a double dip recession as you stated in November...

[alexey]

Considering the economy ALWAYS runs in cycles, the guy who is on the down cycle gets the blame and the guy on the up cycle gets the praise like either of them actually had something to do with it! I see this as the equilibrium phase. Give it another year or two and we will start moving back up. Then we will forget all the stupid things we did as a country to make this down swing so bad and will set ourselves up for another big fall in 10-20 years.

There is a difference between the kind of growth that happened during Bush years and the kind of growth that Obama is aiming to create.

[Burgold]

I believe everyone said the Obama Admin should not come out after a year and at 10% unemployment and say:

We have created or saved 2million jobs. ...

I do think that the "saved" aspect of this was brilliant chicanery and a con job. They should be ashamed of themselves for it. Like too many other things it is nearly impossible to prove or disprove which means it's a worthless statement.

[Thiebear]

Aiming?

could you link that aiming ? I never heard him say aiming or that we even had a target?

[alexey]

Aiming?

could you link that aiming ?

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/aiming

2 : aspire, intend <aims to reform the government>

I never heard him say aiming or that we even had a target?

But here's the thing — even if you doubt the evidence, providing incentives for energy-efficiency and clean energy are the right thing to do for our future — because the nation that leads the clean energy economy will be the nation that leads the global economy. And America must be that nation.

[SkinsHokieFan]

Yeah, in the speech today Obama said that they initially underestimated how bad thing were going. Obviously that mistake doesn't tell us much about the effectiveness of the stimulus.

Again, how on earth did anyone "underestimate" how bad things were?

They campaigned for a year on how bad things were.

"Underestimating" anything is gross neglagience and incompetence on the part of the administration and the economic team

It is unaccaptable that they "underestimated" how bad things were. I don't buy it at all

[SkinsHokieFan]

Except that graph is pure speculation. No one can say with real certainty what the job situation would have been without the stim and certainly no one knows what it will look like years down the road.

So, one graph deals with the present and actual numbers and another deals with a series of projections.

Those were projections made by the administration and used by the admin to sell to the public the stimulus.

So yes they should be held to it every time unemployment numbers come out, because those projections were used to sell this thing

[Chump Bailey]

Good post.

Pictures say a thousand words though.

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/national-debt-budget-deficit-scary-forecast-taxpayers/story?id=9854459

[twa]

That's one hell of a graph Alexy

Perhaps Biden should have shown it to those folks in Michigan yesterday:ols:

The 14% unemployment is simply a figment of their imagination obviously.

[Chump Bailey]

Those were projections made by the administration and used by the admin to sell to the public the stimulus.

So yes they should be held to it every time unemployment numbers come out, because those projections were used to sell this thing

Did not Senator Bayh state that not a single job has been created in the last six months?

[Henry]

Those were projections made by the administration and used by the admin to sell to the public the stimulus.

So yes they should be held to it every time unemployment numbers come out, because those projections were used to sell this thing

Eh.

Economic projections are never accurate. I think that graph is great for needling the Democrats, but as an indicator on how effective the stimulus has worked ... not so much. We'll probably never know exactly how effective (or ineffective) it's been. Hell, economists can't even agree on how effective the policies of FDR were and we've had decades to examine them.

[Burgold]

Those were projections made by the administration and used by the admin to sell to the public the stimulus.

So yes they should be held to it every time unemployment numbers come out, because those projections were used to sell this thing

I guess I've known too many economists

I always figure economic projections are a trip to Wonderland at best or at the worst a bad piece of speculative fiction. Still, it's not unfair to hold them to the fire for not meeting their own objectives (whether or not they were realistic or possible in the first place)

[twa]

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/national-debt-budget-deficit-scary-forecast-taxpayers/story?id=9854459

I'm sure those pessimists will be reassured by China dumping their treasury bills and the great demand for them.

On the bright side China no longer owns us,Japan does

http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2010/02/16/am-china-treasury/

[SkinsHokieFan]

Eh.

Economic projections are never accurate. I think that graph is great for needling the Democrats, but as an indicator on how effective the stimulus has worked ... not so much. We'll probably never know exactly how effective (or ineffective) it's been. Hell, economists can't even agree on how effective the policies of FDR were and we've had decades to examine them.

I guess I've known too many economists

I always figure economic projections are a trip to Wonderland at best or at the worst a bad piece of speculative fiction. Still, it's not unfair to hold them to the fire for not meeting their own objectives (whether or not they were realistic or possible in the first place)

I agree with both of you on economic projections. Economics is much more of an art then science to me (this coming from someone with an economics degree)

However, when you use projections to sell a 787 billion dollar spending plan, you need to be held to it.