Juan Williams tries to penetrate the impermeable membrane of stupid by explaining that the American Recovery Act actually worked. I guess he’s a glutton for right-wing abuse. He also should have pointed out that the Republicans are the ones with blueberry pie on their faces. They were the ones eating the pie.
It is important to keep in mind the dire condition of the economy when the stimulus passed. It was hemorrhaging jobs at the rate of hundreds of thousands per month. During President Bush’s last full month in office, December 2008, the economy lost 779,000 jobs. More jobs were lost that month than in any other single month in the previous 60 years. The GDP, the measure of all economic activity in the country, dropped by an unprecedented 9 percent in the final quarter of 2008.
The stock market took an enormous hit, along with the values of people’s homes and other financial assets.
Still, Republicans lambasted the stimulus plan as socialism, a bailout and the government picking winners and losers.
President Bush had pretty much destroyed this country before he lost 779,000 jobs during his last full month in office. And he couldn’t have done it without the lockstep support of Republicans, particularly in Congress. They screwed things up. And then they were virtually unanimous in opposing the new president’s effort the set things right. That we’ve come this far with no help from the people responsible for creating this mess is a minor miracle. I can imagine how good things would be if the Republicans had had an iota of contrition or any sense of responsibility for what they’d done.
Really good call Booman. We would do well to remind everyone just how bad Bush’s last month in office really was and that Republicans did next to nothing to help the economy recover.
The GDP, the measure of all economic activity in the country, dropped by an unprecedented 9 percent in the final quarter of 2008.
BTW, just so everyone understands, that’s not a 9% annual rate during one quarter. That’s 9% during the quarter, a 36% annual rate.
joe – not to defend Bush here, but the -9% GDP figure in the final quarter of 2008 is a the seasonally adjusted, real, annualized rate:
http://www.bea.gov/newsreleases/national/gdp/2012/pdf/gdp4q11_adv.pdf
So it’s already annualized.
Huh. Right you are.
good one, BooMan.
I think about how many people would be back to work if the President’s Jobs Bill had been passed, and I get mad. I get mad at the thought of all the public sector jobs which have been deliberately destroyed by the GOP…it pisses me off.
they are economic TRAITORS against this country.
they are economic TRAITORS against this country.
Either that, or they are so incompetent and deluded that their efforts to promote economic development are functionally indistinguishable from the policies of those who are traitors against this country – the equivalent of nuclear technicians who are actually doing their very best to run the power plant safely but set of a 50 kiloton blast anyway.
I lean towards the latter. Look at the Bush administration/Republican Congress. They didn’t try to set off the greatest economic collapse since the Great Depression. They tried to promote robust and lasting economic growth. They just sucked at it.
They didn’t try to set off the greatest economic collapse since the Great Depression. They tried to promote robust and lasting economic growth.
Possible, but IMO it’s as likely they were trying to stuff their pockets and either knew it would cause a ton of damage or didn’t.
They tried to loot this country. Hell, Wall Street is still trying. Supply-side economics has long been bunk, but that is still all the GOP has.
at the moment of the stimulus they were traitors; and how about what-his-name betting on default during the debt limit crisis, what’s the word for his actions?