In his travels, the Watchdog hears from bankers , business executives, and others that they are not yet seeing strong signs of a recovery.
It is also apparent that the effects of the Recovery Act are finally being felt, as projects evolve from the planning stage to construction. For example, travelers encounter construction activity (and often delays) on virtually every major highway.
The big question is what happens when this close to a billion dollars is spent? Will the incipient upturn screech to a halt or will we have succeed in “priming the pump” for recovery? No one knows yet.
One thing we do know. Although balancing the budget and reducing deficits is an important long term goal, it is economic insanity to try to do so now. This is what was done during 1937 and it brought about a plunge into an even worse depression than earlier in the decade.
(Although hard for the lay person to intuit, spending funds to put resources to work that otherwise would be idle has no real cost whatsoever and actually serves to reduce the deficit.)
The watchdog is sick and tired of Republican law makers ignoring that the George W. Bush advocated TARP and the Barrack Obama sponsored Recovery Act have saved the world and, instead, seeking political advantage through criticizing the Obama Administration for the national debt. This is not only fallacious but, in our opinion, downright mendacious and unpatriotic.
