Only 10% of the Stimulus Package has been spent

[ThomWV]

Joe Biden, a man who I admire and respect, said yesterday that 'nobody was saying it would be this bad' and that 'nobody expected the unemployment to get so high' but in fact that is not true. Not only was somebody saying both those things but that person was also a prominent Democrat and his words were in print and he was in public saying exactly that. The person was Paul Krugmann.

Now, when your friendly neighborhood Republican (or that asshole at the water cooler at work) says that the Stimulus Package is not working and was a monumental Democrat(ic) failure you might want to point out that 90% of the funds are yet to be spent and presumably 90% or more of the result is yet to be felt.

Consider this a Public Service announcement.

[dkf]

1. Isn't it a failure that its taking so long to spend the stimulus?

The rationale in moving fast was that it needed to be NOW to prevent a downward spiral.

I dunno. Looks like execution is really lacking.

[stray cat]

8. They knew it would take awhile to get the money out - thats why they acted immediately

[Statistical]

2. Which means it is a failure.

If I give you $1000 today that would create some stimulus.
If I give you $3 per paycheck for next 3 years it would not.

The majority of the "stimulus" bill was not stimulus. It was normal spending put in a box with the word stimulus on it.

We could have done real stimulus but politicians saw it as a chance to get their pet projects through using the crisis as leverage. Politics as usual.

[ThomWV]

3. To the two replys above - how long would it take you to spend a trillion dollars?

I do not care if the projects are called 'shovel ready' in fact it takes some time to spend the money. While I dispise the people who say "he's only been in office 6 months" it is true that the money was not legislated into existance until after he was elected, so its not six months - more like 4 - and much of the money has been delayed at the state level where the first of the projects was to begin. As for the big money - the remaining 90% of the funds - it will pass through Federal Agencies and as you may have noticed there was also a rather large shakeup in them that began in January, but is even slower to move than the office of the President.

So have some patience on at least this end of the deal. You may recall that 'nobody' expected the serious spending from the plan to begin until the 3rd quarter, which for those who can't divide 12 months by 4 quarters and then figure out which month that leaves them, starts in September. It is why most ligitimate economists do not expect to see results of any significance until the first quarter of next year.

[Statistical]

7. No serious economist thinks the stimulus was even stimulus.

Nobody thinks a substantial portion of it will be spent this year (in any qtr).
Some of the money is earmarked to be spent over the next 10 years (thats right as in a decade, some of the $ can't be touched until 2019).

Why?
Say a politician likes "project X" he slips it into the stimulus bill. Now if he put funding for only 1 or 2 qtrs the project is back in same situation next year. So he puts in $200M over 4 years ($50M per year). Now he just need to figure out how to extend the funding sometime in the next 4 years.

The stimulus is a joke.

http://www.cnsnews.com/PUBLIC/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=43708
Only 23% will be spent this year (not this qtr, this year)

CBO states the majority of actual stimulus (which was only 25% of the "stimulus bill") wont be spent until 2011
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aJAoR5GECKWo&refer=home

$355 in actual stimulus per the CBO:
$26B in 2009
$110B in 2010
$103B in 2011
$53B in 2012
$63B in 2013-2019 (twenty fucking nineteen a DECADE from now)

Sorry if you bought the "stimulus" line you were sold a bill of goods.

Govt spending can't hold up a $14T economy. It needs to be like a sparkplug. A sparkplug can't move a car but it can ignite the engine. If spark plugs "warmed up the gas" over a 4 year period the engine would never move.

We COULD HAVE got a real stimulus bill but instead politics as usual got in the way and we got more regular ole spending wearing a new stimulus outfit.

Things like a plan to put solar panels on the room of 1 million homes (homeowner pays the govt back over 20 years w/ interest via a lein attached to the home). A plan to build 100 windfarms across the country. A plan to expand highway system (VA needs a southern E-W link that could have employed thousands over next 2-3 years).

The plan would be spend it or lose it. You must use $X per qtr or it is gone, sorry you lost it. 70% of the money front loaded and 30% to keep the spark going.

Want to look for a real stimulus bill look at China. Due to their stimulus their economy will grow 7.5% this year. That's right their GDP is growing and they are building a consumer portion to their economy (the only weak link). Projection for 2010 is 8.5%. Of course they are using the money today not allocating funding of pet projects through 2019.

[dkf]

9. Yup, China has it all over us on how to stimulate an economy.

Use it or lose it should have been key. They would have found a way.

[Statistical]

10. Of course that doesn't even cover the cost of the "non stimulus"

CBO thinks economy won't recover as quickly as the Whitehouse does.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a3FY84ILxIUc

As a result they project $1.85T defecit this year (which won't stimulate the economy).
Even worse they project $9.27T based on Obama projected budgets from 2010-2019.
Now that is on top of the $11T we are already in debt.

We are like a drowning person with a credit card and instead of buying a life preserver, or a raft, or sat phone to call for help we purchase that big screen TV we always wanted one and it will be there when we get home.

[dkf]

11. I didn't realize that medicare/medicaid was already our #1 budget

item. That isn't counting the VA. The health care costs of the Federal Government are going to be crazy.

[chrisa]

4. No, a failure would be if....

90% of the money either disappeared down a black hole (into somebody's pocket who was already rich), or went to private security companies.

[chrisa]

5. No, a failure would be if....

90% of the money either disappeared down a black hole (into somebody's pocket who was already rich), or went to private security companies.

[MercutioATC]

6. True, but the "stimulus" money is only a small portion of what's been spent to revive the economy.

It's disingenuous to suggest that we've only spent $70B to revive the economy when we've actually spent far more than that...even though the dollars didn't officially come from the "stimulus package".

[hfojvt]

12. Dean Baker has a different take

http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/beat_the_press

"The economists who missed the housing bubble seem to be having a hard time understanding the timing of the stimulus. While the vast majority of the money has not yet been spent, the economy has already felt the bulk of its impact.

The reason is simply, more than 60 percent of the stimulus takes the form of lower tax rates and higher benefit levels for programs like unemployment insurance. The lower tax rates and higher benefit levels already went effect at the start of the spring. This means that people already have higher take-home pay or government benefit checks. The stimulus will not increase further in future months, which means that there is no reason to expect spending to increase further."