Headline in the news today: headline “Jobless rate tops 10 pct. for first time since ’83“
One thing the stimulus bill of February 2009 was supposed to do, we were promised by the president and the Democrats, was to soften the blow of unemployment. Why, without the stimulus bill, unemployment will peak at (audible gasp) nine percent! But with the stimulus, unemployment won’t exceed eight percent (hallelujahs). See, look, we cobbled together a report that generated this cool graph to prove it:
Not everyone was convinced, however; Cato Institute found hundreds of economists (including Duke’s Mike Munger, John Coleman, Adriano Rampini, Juan Rubio-Ramirez and Edward Tower; East Carolina’s Randall Parker; Western Carolina’s James Smith; Appalachian State’s John Dawson and Timothy Perri; and Wake Forest’s Sherry Jarrell, John Moorhouse and Robert Whaples) who warned the Obama administration against such folly:
More government spending by Hoover and Roosevelt did not pull the United States economy out of the Great Depression in the 1930s. More government spending did not solve Japan?s ?lost decade? in the 1990s. As such, it is a triumph of hope over experience to believe that more government spending will help the U.S. today. To improve the economy, policymakers should focus on reforms that remove impediments to work, saving, investment and production. Lower tax rates and a reduction in the burden of government are the best ways of using fiscal policy to boost growth.
To them and us, the news today isn’t surprising.
