Reflections on the Stimulus

It's now one year after the economic Stimulus was passed by the Democrats in Congress with only three Republican "yes" votes out of their entire caucus.

How's it doing?

CBO estimates that in the fourth quarter of calendar year 2009, ARRA added between 1.0 million and 2.1 million to the number of workers employed in the United States, and it increased the number of full-time-equivalent jobs by between 1.4 million and 3.0 million…CBO also estimates that real (inflation-adjusted) gross domestic product (GDP) was 1.5 percent to 3.5 percent higher in the fourth quarter than would have been the case in the absence of ARRA.

That's the assessment of the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office.  How about some non-government sources?

Perhaps the best-known economic research firms are IHS Global Insight, Macroeconomic Advisers and Moody’s Economy.com. They all estimate that the bill has added 1.6 million to 1.8 million jobs so far and that its ultimate impact will be roughly 2.5 million jobs.

Sounds pretty successful to me.  We're certainly not out of the woods and there's much to be done, but the party of "NO" sure can't take credit for any of this and have, in fact, continued to badmouth the Stimulus.  That is, when they're not hypocritically taking credit for legislation they didn't vote for.

I'd like to hear the Republicans in Congress continue to badmouth the Stimulus to those people who have jobs today because at least one party is trying to help the American people instead of "just saying no".