WE TOLD YOU SO …
On February 16, 2009 this website addressed the economic “stimulus” plan that U.S. President Barack Obama would sign into law the following day.
“It is, quite simply, the worst possible response to our current economic crisis that America could have come up with – making its taxpayers fund an unprecedented bailout of failed bureaucracies at every level of government with money we don’t have,” we wrote at the time.
Of course we didn’t limit our criticism to Obama … we blasted the GOP for its wild embrace of Washington, D.C.’s Keynesian culture as well.
“Republicans have rightly washed their hands of this monument to central planning, but let’s not forget it was a Republican President who started us down this road – or that it was Republicans who failed to reign in spending when they had the chance, thus creating the liberal blitzkrieg we are currently witnessing,” we added.
Truth …
Anyway, this week marks the fifth anniversary of the Obama stimulus – an occasion The Wall Street Journal marked with a brutally candid assessment of its failure to “stimulate” anything.
Specifically, The Journal notes how economic growth over the last four-and-a-half years has averaged just 2.4 percent per quarter – well below the 4 percent growth seen during the non-stimulated recoveries of the 1980s and 1990s.
What went wrong?
“The failure of the stimulus was a failure of the neo-Keynesian belief that economies can be jolted into action by a wave of government spending,” the paper wrote. “In fact, people are smart enough to realize that every dollar poured into the economy via government spending must eventually be taken out of the productive economy in the form of taxes. The way to jolt an economy to life and to sustain long-term growth is to create more incentives for people to work, save and invest. Let’s hope Washington’s next stimulus plan is aimed at reducing the tax and regulatory burden on American job creators.
Exactly …
Too bad Obama and the majority of congressional “Republicans” still don’t get it …
84 comments
We averted a Depression and total financial meltdown in 2008. it was not a ‘recession’.
HAHAHAHA Right. Considering we were already recovering. Banks were fine when they changed the accounting rules from Mark to Market. It was a payback to the people who elected the Dems and Obama. Look at where the money went. Each job cost about 1 million dollars, and they were temporary. Sign me up for a million dollar job for one or two years.
Keep in mind that TARP was Bush’s baby.
TARPwas pretty much a concession to the media, dumb@$$ vooters and Obama, who they knew was going to be elected, because Liberal-Tarian McCain was gutless, and quit before he even tried.
Reagan always fought back to the media. Bush tried to pacify them, and it really hurt the country…and erased all the good work Bush did w/ the economy…
Bush was no friend of the economy.
5% unemployment, rising salaries, low taxes and rebates to payers, low energy prices, real, free-market based stock mkt. growth, opportunity for expansion…
Not sure what you consider a’ friend of the economy’ to be…but I’d love to see what more he could have done.
The employment numbers were as cooked then as Obama’s are now. I would submit that except for housing, we never really recovered from to 2001 recession, and you see where the economy’s overdependence on that segment of the economy turned out.
Stock market…well, I seem to recall the bottom falling out of that during Bush.
And regarding energy, he gave us the wonderful Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007.
So, no, he wasn’t really a friend of the economy. Granted, he had everything but the second coming of Christ occur during his presidency, but take your blinders off and take a good look at what happened.
You’re full of $#!*. The economy was good under Bush. He spent too much, but those jobs were Never cooked. And the lack of inflation and growth-oriented tax policy cannot be disputed, unless you are just ignorant.
The media would be ALL over ANY Republican fudging numbers. Excpet they manipulated good news into bad under Bush..and a lot of idiots (like you I guess) buy it…
I mean this w/ all sincerity…it’s because of Dumb@$$#$ people like you…,who are so eager to bitch and complain, to act as if you are somehow smarter than everyone else, that we got an Obama.
Because they can fool you, as to what is real or not…you can be manipulated into thinking there is no difference between good and bad…
When reality is contested…corruption runs wild…and it’s time good people begin to kick the @$$ of delusional people.
And I hate to say this., but I would literally beat the $#!* out of someone like you, if you get in my face and pull your stupid Bull-S#!*…I’ve had about as much as I can stand of destructive, and soulless liars and dangerous idiots like you…
I’m not saying you cannot remain a fool…but be careful who you do it around…
Yes, at the end of his term the country was losing more than 750,000 jobs per month…. yea, I remember that.
And even then, over an 8-year period, Bush’s unemployment rate was an average of about 5%…you Dumb@$$…
Why is it you Obam-ites can match your lord-gods numbers w/ Bush’s worst, after the democrat Congress took hold…but you have Never come close to equaling Bush’s best…???
IOW: You say: Bush at his worst, was almost as close to being as bad as Obama at his best…
Seems all you can do is threaten, call names, and curse. Seems like you can’t refute what I say, and it makes you angry.
Good.
maybe it’ll make you do some research and get past the (R) vs (D) lunacy and see the government as a whole is the problem.
I will grant you that it isn’t a fun thing to realize.
Again 5% (or less) unemployment pretty much REFUTES the H#!! out of your Ignorant @$$…
Look at the avg. price of Gas and utility prices under Bush they were substantially lower…you f#c*ing brain dead idiot…taxes were lower and salaries rose, too.
Of course, when you take facts, and slap the s#!* out of an idiot w/ them..it only addles the idiot more. You are testament to that….
http://www.regulatorystaff.sc.gov/Documents/Electric%20and%20Gas/SCEG%20Electric%205-1-13.pdf
And I bet if you went back to Jan 2001, you’d see more of an increase during Bush’s tenure.
The 5% unemployment suffers the same way it does under Obama. A lot of people quit looking, and a lot of folks took part time work.
That’s just not true. The numbers DO NOT support you at all. I think you just have to bash because it makes you fell superior or smarter if you dislike all leaders…And you think it gives you more credibility to knock Obama. When the opposite should be true. To ignore the truth, just discounts everything you say.
I’m in business and I KNOW for a fact there was MUCH more opportunity, freedom and number of jobs when Bush was president.
I’ll hold Bush accountable for the mistakes he made…but other than spending too much, he did a pretty good job.
Too many Republicans, or independents, attack Bush because the media has convinced them he was bad. If you do the research, and apply reality, you will know that you are being deceived to think that Bush’s economy was anywhere near as bad as Obama’s.
In business? So the grass grew faster during the Bush years?
keep your percent bs, asshole
Eat crap Tango!
Sir Ronnie started the whole downward spiral with his “trickle down” economics and blaming everything on the “welfare queens,” who turned out to actually being the corporate take over of America. The GOP has a damned short memory.
People who don’t believe trickle down worked seem to have forgotten the boom time of the 80s and 90s.
Short memories indeed.
Trickle down did not work or it would still be working past 10 years.
It would still be, but it was pretty much hobbled during Bush’s terms. Clinton pretty much left it alone and benefited from it.
I remember the 80s and 90s quite well, Trickle down was intended to benefit the wealthiest Americans and did so very well. Everyone else, not so much. The average income for the middle 60% of Americans has barely kept up with inflation since 1980. I think its up like 30% from 1980 to 2010. That is less than 1% a year. In the meantime the income of the wealthiest 1% is up 200% approximately 6.5% a year ( Before the Bush Crash their income was up 315% or 10.5% a year)
Trickle down dramatically decreased the income gains seen by middle class Americans from 1950 to 1980 and dramatically increased the income gains of the top 1% during that same period. From 1950 to 1980 the percentage of growth in income experienced by the middle class and the wealthy was approximately the same. That changed in the 1980 as income growth as shifted to the very wealthy and the middle class saw income gains stagnate.
This was always the intent.
Really, because I did quite well for myself in the 80s and 90s. From 2000 on, not so much.
You are right, wise one. Your comment is well respected in my book.
We borrowed our way out of a financial meltdown not realizing that the best way to get out of a hole is to stop digging. Instead of facing the inevitable we came up with a plan to delay it but make the impact 10x worse when reality hits.
“We averted a Depression”
LMAO!
You really only have to catch a glimpse of this man’s photo and the mind should automatically go to “failure”, no matter what the subject matter.
Yes Jay we all know he is black.
Tom, you are clearly a moron and add nothing to any discussion. You might be very surprised at who I think should be hired as the next chief of police of columbia, shock horror, it’s a black man. Why don’t you STFU until you have something relevant to say.
If you can catch a glimpse of this man’s photo and automatically go to failure, it really does make one think you are racist. Shock horror. Too bad you don’t know it. That’s the worst kind.
If you can see his face, and NOT automatically think of failure…you are a racist…and a Dumb@$$….
Stimulus, cash for clunkers, war mongering, race baiting, privacy invader, should I go on? I base my opinion of people from their substance, not their race. There is NO superior race. Bless your fucking heart, you’re pathetic. I have equally strong opinions of Bush, Gdub, Clinton, Carter, Reagan. You and your kind are the ones who always insert race into the conversation. It’s so obvious and a half witted way to argue, ANYTHING.
I’m just going by what you posted, bless your heart. You do seem to be pathetic.
What I posted where? Keep towing that hard left line sweetheart. The sooner you realize there is no right or wrong, only the truth, the sooner we can save this country.
The fact that you prop up fellow morons like Tom only makes you look like more of a hateful old hag. You say “one” like it’s a majority. “One” encompass simple minded people like you.
Angry white men are simple minded. That would be you. You’re ilk is what got the country where it is now. The President has made amazing strides in spite of the obstruction by your buddies. It will be a long time before there is other than a Dem in the White House. The truth will set you free. Seems that you don’t want that however, sweetheart. Typically resort to name calling too. That is the MO of the righties. Bless your heart.
It’s “your ilk”, not “you’re ilk”. Look around at my comments on this site. I don’t bash other people for their beliefs. You have no problem doing that though. It’s only when I am poked by antagonists like you, that I become an “angry white man”. Have fun being a hateful old hag.
Name calling then typing corrections. Blow it out your arse, angry white man.
Thank you for editing that, it showcased your ignorance.
If typing in a hurry showcases ignorance, what is your excuse?
You hide behind an avatar “lady”. Go fuck yourself.
Bless your heart, you already are.
And only you know the “truth”, right TEABAGGER?
I looked at pictures of John Edwards and thought ‘failure.” Was I a racist?
If you look at pictures of George the Second and think ‘failure,’ are you a racist, SCBlue?
I don’t judge on a picture. Period.
Sure you do. Everyone does, to an extent.
You make a judgement based on the info presented. Sometimes it is just a picture.
An assumption and a judgment are two different things…
That said: The left has it almost criminal to make an assumption they don’t like, no matter how logical. And people like you are too coward and stupid to stand up to them…because you have no discernment of what is right or wrong, because of your ignorance.
I agree with you about the left, for what it is worth.
But the rest of your post is typical drivel.
I don’t expect you to agree…but I’m right. If we adhere to what people like you believe, this country will just get worse and worse.
If you don’t recognize what is good, because the media is leading you away from that…Good people fail. And the worst of those in this country control all of us (see Obama)….
The choice is real simple. Wise up and be honest. Or civility and right will perish.
You’re a fine one to talk about civility.
Obama is worse than Bush, but Bush was not all that grand, himself. And the congress under both of them is/was miserable.
Ignorance is bliss, and Grand Tango is the happiest one here…..
The first time I saw video of Obama I was optimistic, I didn’t know a thing about the guy but I had no reason to dislike him and in fact found his excitement infectious and didn’t seem disingenuous. I was excited, I was hopeful. Then I started watching him, reading more and more about his short political career and saw who he aligned himself with and who his political and personal supporters were and it was enough to open my eyes. I feel sorry for anyone who has their head so far up one political party or the other’s ass that they fail to see how wrong both sides of the line actually are. Anybody salivating at the thought of Hillary Clinton being the first First Woman is a lunatic. Get her elected and watch for Obama Redux, the worst of Obama’s allies and advisors are complicit in the Clinton dynasty. What a shameful pair they turned out to be.
If Obama excited you, just based on his color, you are as stupid and racist as the Rev. Jeremiah Wright…
When are the idiots of American going to figure out, basing your love, hope or hate on skin color is WRONG, and leads to collapse???…no matter if it’s liberals doing it, or those Klan members we have heard about that existed in the democat party’s history….race-based judgment is WRONG!!!!!
You judge on the hateful rhetoric and propaganda of your puppet masters in the DNC..and they are Racists…
Remember: Obama insulted his grandmother, who raised him, as a ‘Typical White Woman’…
If you defend that kind of talk, you are a Filthy Bigot, and you hate based on color..and your own small mind…
People like you, and Obama, are Disgusting…
Your posts have never given me reason to believe you are a racist. I can’t say the same for others; JE and GT, for example.
Your posts have never given me a reason to believe you have a brain.
I’m guessing skin color is THE ONLY reason you voted for him. Otherwise you are one ignorant Mo-Fo…
At least you can claim that you are a racist, instead of stupid…
Too funny tango, he’s also a Dem by the way!
I see raciss people!
You can REALLY tell a mindless Dumb@$$ by the fact that he cannot tell the brutal truth about Obama, w/o bashing Bush and the GOP…FITS epitomizes this type of idiot more than any wanna-be pundit that I know…
FITS, where you Liberal-Tarians are so F*#ked up in your thinking: under Bush, the economy was roaring. He allowed for growth, jobs and prosperity by getting out of the way. The gov’t sent me tax rebate checks, too…until the leftwing thieves got Congress.
Did Bush go along w/ the democrats and the people in the country the media leads, and agree to their spending?…Yes, sadly. But his economy could have easily paid it back, if it were not for the disaster of Obama getting elected.
Bush also had to clean up the Terrorist mess Clinton neglected that cost us 9-11 (what was Sandy Burglar hiding in his underwear?)….That was not cheap…and it helped lead to American prosperity for almost all of his terms.
Ignorant, mis-guided F*#ks like FITS are why we will have such a hard time defining the failure, and ridding ourselves of liberal democrats.
What is wrong with your keyboard? Has it been remapped or something?
It’s programmed so that really ignorant Mother-F*c*#r$…like you…will ask that question…
Bush fucked us, plain and simple.
Yes, and before that Clinton fucked us, then he kept fucking us all the way through to today. So what’s your point?
explain that one to me
In 1999, Democrats led by President Bill Clinton and Republicans led by Sen. Phil Gramm joined forces to repeal Glass-Steagall at the behest of the big banks. What happened over the next eight years was an almost exact replay of the Roaring Twenties. Once again, banks originated fraudulent loans and once again they sold them to their customers in the form of securities. The bubble peaked in 2007 and collapsed in 2008. The hard-earned knowledge of 1933 had been lost in the arrogance of 1999.
http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/economic-intelligence/2012/08/27/repeal-of-glass-steagall-caused-the-financial-crisis
No, there was a difference.
The twenties were people who didn’t know what they were doing investing in stocks they knew nothing about.
The aughts were folks buying more house than they could afford.
The Glass Steagall act played a role, sure, but it wasn’t what set the disater in motion, it just made it worse, for banks whose greed overcame their fiduciary sense.
u talking about cum on monica? or dress?
Damn Jay did not know u were that dumb, comment to tango, please.
You liberals and your name calling, it’s so predictable.
Pot to Kettle, your black.
It’s you’re.
Yeah…his economy ran so smoothly, your worthless, Lazy liberal @$$ had NO excuse for not getting a job, did you???
He didn’t do it alone, and he wasn’t the first, by any means.
Fuck the job creators. Fuck cutting regulations. Fuck cutting taxes for the rich and large corporations. How about tax cuts for the working class? Enforcing regulations for once?
How about making government work for the people and not be a backscratcher for the oligarchy?
Bush’s tax cuts fucked our country, the middle class got little out of it and we lost major revenue. Republicans raised spending because they know cutting middle class programs will get them fired and they are bribed to give corporate welfare.
As for less regulation, seriously dude? With BP weaseling out of Deepwater Horizon liabilities, financial industry deregulations, oil, chemical, and coal ash leaks and contaminations, you really want the government to do even less shit to protect us from abuses against society and the common man?
This is exactly why I say fuck the right wing. Cutting taxes and working for the working class is a false guise being used to serve the corporate elite and obscenely wealthy. They sucker fools in with shit that might actually improve things and then bait and switch them into selling this country down the river.
“Job creators” aren’t creating jobs with the tax cuts they got last time, let’s give them even more and hope they don’t continue to hoard a massively disproportional amount of the wealth! Cut their regulations so our rivers are deadly and our air toxic, just like China! Yeah, fuck that.
You are resistant to the truth, like Hitler and Nazi Germany. When truth suffers, we will be miserable, and failed, as a country.
There are 17 more million people in the US since Obama took over…and more than 2 million fewer jobs…and a vast majority of the jobs available are part time.
You are a F*#king, closed-minded idiot.
It is getting to where plowing under Dumb@$$#$ like you is the only answer.
Looks like Tango’s not working this week ether…
show me the truth?
I reckon so, the money should have gone to the working people. Not the rich, it’s not obama or bush, it’s the rich bastards .
Sure seems to be a lot of class warfare going on.
When you go to the grocery store that 2.4 percent is not enough to cover size reductions and price increases, everybody buys groceries.
“The failure of the stimulus was a failure of the neo-Keynesian belief that economies can be jolted into action by a wave of government spending,”
The above is a “Keynesian” belief, “Neo” doesn’t mean anything as Keynes championed this tactic from day 1 in his “General Theory” book.
The WSJ looks to be obfuscating already on behalf of Keynesians so that when the big “boom” happens they can try to salvage what’s left of a shitty theory.
“Too bad Obama and the majority of congressional “Republicans” still don’t get it …”
Make no mistake: Obama gets it. The RINOs get it. They understand perfectly that they can work in cahoots to use government to cripple and/or wreck the economy while blaming the private sector for all the problems….and the water-carrying, big-government slavish media will convince enough of the empty-skulled idiots (many of whom are commenting here) to lap that bullshit up and regurgitate it like the morons that they are.
It’s just like ObummerCare and “minimum wage” hikes and all of the other central-planning, top-down programs that never work. It’s all about accumulating more power and money for themselves while at the same time controlling the masses. They do nothing to help people help themselves but rather do everything to control the people.
Even Fox News’ own story on the stimulus anniversary said that economists generally agree that the stimulus helped America get out of the GFC, they just quibble over the number of jobs created. This is further backed up by the independed CBO report on the matter.
To hell with all the bastards in DC!