At last the secret is revealed. Not only has the stimulus saved us in the short term from a depression and given tax relief to 95% of taxpayers, but it is much broader and deeper in providing medium term foundations to help solve many long term challenges of our country and make it competitive in the 21st century. Too bad it has been such a carefully guarded secret. Hopefully if the truth were to be known we might yet be able to save the country from its obstructionist forces.
“How the Stimulus Is Changing America”
TIME: The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 – President Obama’s $787 billion stimulus – has been marketed as a jobs bill, and that’s how it’s been judged. The White House says it has saved or created about 3 million jobs, helping avoid a depression and end a recession. Republicans mock it as a Big Government boondoggle that has failed to prevent rampant unemployment despite a massive expansion of the deficit. Liberals complain that it wasn’t massive enough.
It’s an interesting debate. Politically, it’s awkward to argue that things would have been even worse without the stimulus, even though that’s what most nonpartisan economists believe. But the battle over the Recovery Act’s short-term rescue has obscured its more enduring mission: a long-term push to change the country. It was about jobs, sure, but also about fighting oil addiction and global warming, transforming health care and education, and building a competitive 21st century economy. Some Republicans have called it an under-the-radar scramble to advance Obama’s agenda – and they’ve got a point. (See TIME’s special report “After One Year, A Stimulus Report Card.”)
Yes, the stimulus has cut taxes for 95% of working Americans, bailed out every state, hustled record amounts of unemployment benefits and other aid to struggling families and funded more than 100,000 projects to upgrade roads, subways, schools, airports, military bases and much more. But in the words of Vice President Joe Biden, Obama’s effusive Recovery Act point man, “Now the fun stuff starts!” The “fun stuff,” about one-sixth of the total cost, is an all-out effort to exploit the crisis to make green energy, green building and green transportation real; launch green manufacturing industries; computerize a pen-and-paper health system; promote data-driven school reforms; and ramp up the research of the future. “This is a chance to do something big, man!” Biden said during a 90-minute interview with TIME.…. (more)
