7/12/2023 0 Comments Security moneywellThe library was almost all out of home-repair manuals. On the billboard over the Cock-A-Doodle Café, a new church had a website for the times: Residents buzzed about the woman in nearby South Bend who robbed a Long John Silver's, apologizing tearfully, "If I wasn't down and out, I wouldn't be doing this." 1 Martin's grocery advertised Manwich on sale, ten cans for $10. The Salvation Army: WE HAVE NEW MATTRESSES. At the insurance company: COBRA TOO EXPENSIVE? CALL OR STOP IN FOR A FREE QUOTE. The one above the mechanic's shop read ELKHART, LET US HELP. Signs of the recession were everywhere as I drove through Elkhart in March 2009. And in a world where more and more Americans got their news in 140-character chunks and in the extremes of cable TV and blogs, the story didn't matter. The Obama team had a far better narrative, but the Republicans had better talking points. Each time, they told the story of a president who put Americans to work, pulled the country back from the brink, and invested in the future. ![]() Since the stimulus passed, Obama administration officials have gone on more than four hundred trips to attend groundbreakings, announce funding, and otherwise promote the stimulus. But the administration spent little time showing off the areas where more money was spent: the teacher whose job was saved, the middle-class family whose taxes were cut. The emphasis on shovel-ready infrastructure inspired visions of the New Deal and created the impression that the stimulus was largely a public works package. The stimulus created an unprecedented buzz around clean energy, popularizing the term "green jobs," and turning attention to solar panels, wind turbines, electric cars, weatherization, biofuels, smart energy meters, and high-speed rail.Ī common theme in the news coverage was that the White House bungled the message on the stimulus. At least thirty states liberalized unemployment laws, such as opening up benefits to part-time workers, those in job training, or people who left the workforce to care for a sick relative. A relatively small pot of education grants goaded thirty-two states to enact major reforms, such as tying teacher pay to student performance or lifting caps on charter schools. When the last dime is spent, more than 41,000 miles of roads will be paved, widened, and improved 600,000 low-income homes weatherized and made more energy-efficient over 3,000 rural schools connected to high-speed Internet. ![]() Without it, they say, the unemployment rate would have reached 12 percent and lingered in the double digits until 2012. Economists and nonpartisan forecasting firms estimate that the Recovery Act created and saved 2 million to 3 million jobs. Seventy-five years from now, historians will still be debating the effect the federal stimulus package had in ameliorating the Great Recession, just as they do now with the New Deal. Stepping outside the political fray, ProPublica’s Michael Grabell offers a perceptive, balanced, and dramatic story of what happened to the tax payers’ money, pursuing the big question through behind-the-scenes interviews and on-the-ground reporting in more than a dozen states across the country. Senator Mitch McConnell gave a taste of the enormity of the money committed: if you had spent 1 million a day since Jesus was born, it still would not add up to the price tag of the stimulus package.Ī nearly entirely partisan piece of legislation - Democrats voted for it, Republicans against - the story of how the bill was passed and, more importantly, how the money was spent and to what effect, is known barely at all. Central to this is the ”American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009” - the largest economic recovery plan in American history. The 2012 presidential campaign will, above all else, be a referendum on the Obama administration’s handling of the financial crisis, recalling the period when Obama’s “audacity of hope” met the austerity of reality.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |