On Sep 29, 2010, at 3:00 PM, Eric Beck wrote:
> With the requisite caveats--that the loudest opponents are absolute
> cretins and that the package did quite a lot of good--it's not totally
> ridiculous for US workers to be critical of actually existing stimulus
> packages: the administration predicted 8% unemployment but it's
> settled a bit under 10%; piddling tax cuts and one-time payments for
> most people; tax credits (e.g., college tuition) that are useless for
> many; long-term unemployment is still a huge problem; etc. If this is
> the result of stimulus, then it's really not hard to see why people
> are against it.
There's not much doubt that the StimPak kept things from getting worse. I know that it's hard to get excited when saying "unemployment is probably 1.5 points lower than it would have been without the StimPak," but it's almost certainly true. So what if the admin was wrong in its prediction? What do you prefer? Budget cuts?
Doug