From ITS OUR ECONOMY:
Last night President Obama proposed a $474 billion ‘Jobs Act’. What we got from Obama was a 2009 ‘Stimulus Light’ proposal, with all the problems of the prior 2009 stimulus package in the form of inadequate magnitude of spending, wrong composition and targets, and bad timing.
First, on the matter of the magnitude of spending in the proposal. Some think it was bold. But put it in context. $447 billion just won’t achieve the job creation it claims. It’s once again too little for an economy the size of the US, for an economy in as deep an economic hole as it is, and in an economy facing growing downward momentum at home in the context of a global economy also rapidly slipping.
In February 2009 President Obama proposed $787 billion in economic stimulus. Unemployment was about 25 million. More than two years later, after the $787 billion has been spent, unemployment (measured by the Labor Department’s U-6 rate) is still around 25 million. Why therefore should Obama’s latest proposals to create jobs, consisting about half the size of the 2009 stimulus, expect to create jobs when the larger stimulus did not?
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EDITOR: He tried and he can’t get the minimum of $787 billion that is needed. So he has pieced together a proposal of half measures that that have a chance of receiving needed Republican support in the House of Representatives.
Seems on every issue Obama starts the debate without putting forward what is necessary to actually solve the problem. Why not at least start the debate by putting forward the solution?