Obama Stimulus and What it Did?

The Republican presidential candidates have plenty of ideas. Unfortunately, most are based in political ideology rather than facts.

What this country needs is a conversation about potential government action that actually works to stimulate the economy short-term and long-term. That isn’t what voters are getting.

At every turn candidates advocate tax cuts, adhering to the idea that they will lead to new investments and create private-sector jobs. “It’s never happened. It’s never happened in the way they fantasize about,” said Iowa State University economist David Swenson. What tax cuts absolutely do: reduce revenue to the U.S. Treasury, which exacerbates the country’s deficits and debt.

Then there’s the push for “smaller government.” The country is witnessing right now how that impacts the economy. Every month this year government jobs were lost, offsetting employment gains in other sectors. In August, 17,000 government jobs were lost. Those are real Americans losing real jobs. A new report from the Census Bureau shows there were over 200,000 fewer state and local government jobs in 2010 than 2009.

Add to that the misguided rhetoric about the impact of current government policies from candidates, including Michele Bachmann. During a recent visit to a traffic-signal plant in Waterloo, she said the company was an example of how President Barack Obama’s policies are “continuing to dig us deeper into the hole toward another recession.”

The truth: As much as 80 percent of OMJC Signal Inc.’s revenue comes from government purchases. Stimulus spending to build infrastructure, including roads, has helped the company thrive in the past few years.

Yet candidates continue to insist the stimulus package didn’t work, even though the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office recently reported the stimulus funded 550,000 jobs in the second quarter of 2011. It shored up state Medicaid programs so people could go to the doctor. It provided unemployment benefits so people could buy gasoline. It funded needed infrastructure projects.

According to the budget office, the programs that provided the greatest boost to the economy, as measured by GDP gains, were direct purchases made by the federal government, money sent to states for everything from housing assistance to highway construction, and direct help to individuals. This included unemployment compensation, food assistance and student aid.

What yielded the smallest benefit? Tax cuts for high-income individuals and corporations.

There is much debate over what the government should do at this moment in history. Ask one economist and you’ll get one answer. Ask another and you’ll get a different answer. But ask a politician and you’ll get an answer tainted by a political agenda.

That is not what this country needs to move forward

http://answers.yahoo.com/