stimulus

Damn right America is better off than it was four years ago.

Four years ago was September 2008. George W. Bush was president and Wall Street giant Lehman Brothers was collapsing. It was a time of fear. It was a time of panic about the future. Recalling that anxiety is unsettling. But it’s important for comparison sake.

Lehman filed for bankruptcy this week four years ago – Sept. more »

More »»

GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s reaction to high unemployment is creepy.

During an interview with CBS reporter Jan Crawford last week, Romney smirked as he mentioned that unemployment has remained above 8 percent for 39 months. more »

More »»

Everybody knows that Paul Krugman is a Nobel Prize-winning economist, a sometimes combative columnist and a liberal lion. But in a conversation which aired this weekend we learned more about his personal response to an ongoing crisis he describes as "really nasty," "very, very severe," and "gratuitious," and which he says "will not go away quickly or necessary at all" unless we do something. more »

More »»

Now we know: The jobs situation is bleak, and it will continue to be bleak until we face up to the fact that we need more stimulus spending - lots more - and we have to relieve millions of homeowners from their indentured servitude to Wall Street so that they can help restore the economy too.

In other words spend, spend, spend - and provide some principal reduction for underwater homeowners. more »

More »»

Today the Western world is divided between two visions of our economic future. One vision is of austerity and the other is of growth. One is of hope and possibility, the other of despair and cynicism. The battle between these two visions has divided the United States and the entire Western world.

And both of them can be found in in President Obama latest budget.

It's almost as if the President decided that if the Republicans can't provide him with a challenger worthy of this debate, he'll conduct it with himself.

Double Vision

In one vision, the excesses and errors of the 1 percent have left the Western world too broke to fulfill its social contract with anyone but the wealthiest among us. Middle class and lower-income citizens must be abandoned to face a future of ever-dwindling resources. Government's only permissible spending is on wasteful military systems that enrich wealthy contractors and their corporations.

In the other vision, government retains its role as an engine of growth and change. It's wise enough to invest in long-term expansion before pivoting to address its deficit problems. It manages its budget, not "like a family," but like a business - one that understands that well-timed investment is the key to continued growth and prosperity, In today's world, that means investing in jobs, research, education, health, and infrastructure.

More »»

This is the 3rd anniversary of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, commonly known as President Obama's "stimulus." Republicans say it made the economy worse. Let's see... more »

More »»

The reaction to January's jobs report shows how tragically our expectations have fallen, especially among some Democrats and their supporters. Their cheerleading isn't just bad policy or bad politics, although it is both of those things. It's also callous and insensitive to the misery of millions.

It's important to keep explaining what needs to be done to end that misery. To do otherwise is to serve, however unintentionally, an insidious agenda from the right that would lower our expectations until these tragic levels of unemployment are seen as the "new normal."

An increase in jobs is a good thing, of course, even if it's far from what's needed. Here's something else that was good about the report: Conservatives keep telling us that manufacturing jobs have moved offshore permanently, but 50,000 of them were created last month. Now we can put that argument to bed and can get to work creating more of them. more »

More »»

Problem: Your right-wing brother-in-law is plugged into the FOX-Limbaugh lie machine, and keeps sending you emails about "Obama spending" and "Obama deficits" and how the "Stimulus" just made things worse. Solution: Here are three "reality-based" charts to send to him. These charts show what actually happened.

Spending more »

More »»

Here is everything you need to know about how to fix the deficits and jobs problems. This is a chart of job creation over the last few years:

more »

More »»

In the wake of a deal that included all the wrong things, today the President finally said all the right things. His agreement with the Republicans included no investment in economic growth, no job creation, no tax increases on the wealthy, no closing of corporate loopholes, no protection for entitlements - not even include an extension of unemployment benefits for the victims of Wall Street's last greed-and-gambling spree. That's why three-quarters of the Republicans in Congress - and only half the Democrats - voted for it. It's why most of the Tea Party Caucus supported it, and why most of the Progressive Caucus rejected it.

As Nate Silver explains, the numbers show that the President could have pushed for a better deal and he probably would have prevailed. This deal appears to be the latest in a series of agreements where the President seems to have gotten what he wanted, while at the same time claiming it was the best he could get. He's spent far too time much echoing the destructive austerity rhetoric of his opponents, and he has pushed for far too many of their policies. He has opposed positions that are supported by an "American Majority" made up of Democrats, independents, and in many cases by Republicans too.

More »»