ECONOMIC PERSPECTIVES

Show Me the Stimulus provides links to news and commentary about the effects of federal government spending from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act in the state of Maryland. This nine-month Maryland Morning series is funded by The Joseph and Harvey Meyerhoff Family Charitable Funds, The Baltimore Community Foundation, Melnick-Newell and Associates, and Persels & Associates.

Robert Reich explains " Why No Amount of Fiscal or Monetary Stimulus Will Be Enough, Given How Small A Share of Total Income the Middle Now Receives. "

In the August 26, 2010 TIME magazine article " How the Stimulus Is Changing America ," Michael Grunwald provides an analysis of its impact. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 — President Obama's $787 billion stimulus — has been marketed as a jobs bill, and that's how it's been judged. The White House says it has saved or created about 3 million jobs, helping avoid a depression and end a recession. Republicans mock it as a Big Government boondoggle that has failed to prevent rampant unemployment despite a massive expansion of the deficit. Liberals complain that it wasn't massive enough. It's an interesting debate. Politically, it's awkward to argue that things would have been even worse without the stimulus, even though that's what most nonpartisan economists believe. But the battle over the Recovery Act's short-term rescue has obscured its more enduring mission: a long-term push to change the country. It was about jobs, sure, b...

According to the July 14, 2010 article " New WH report claims more jobs from stimulus bill ," the Obama administration claims the federal government stimulus spending program prevented unemployment in the U.S. from being worse than it was. Claims such as this are impossible to prove (or disprove), however. The report is an attempt to deflect blame from the President for the condition of the economy and to inform the public that the Obama administration has been pursuing the standard remedies for fighting economic recession: expansionary fiscal policy (in the forms of increased government spending and tax cuts) and expansionary monetary policy (in the form of low interest rates). According to the article: WASHINGTON – A new White House report says last year's $862 billion stimulus law has now "saved or created" between 2.5 million and 3.6 million jobs. That's up from 2.2 million to 2.8 million in the last quarterly report from the White House Council of Ec...

In the January 11, 2010 article " AP IMPACT: Road projects don't help unemployment ," Associated Press writers Matt Apuzzo and Brett J. Blackledge report that recent road construction and maintenance projects have not generated the jobs many expected. WASHINGTON – Ten months into President Barack Obama's first economic stimulus plan, a surge in spending on roads and bridges has had no effect on local unemployment and only barely helped the beleaguered construction industry, an Associated Press analysis has found. Spend a lot or spend nothing at all, it didn't matter, the AP analysis showed: Local unemployment rates rose and fell regardless of how much stimulus money Washington poured out for transportation, raising questions about Obama's argument that more road money would address an "urgent need to accelerate job growth." Obama wants a second stimulus bill from Congress that relies in part on more road and bridge spending, projects the president sa...

In the January 3, 2010 article " Will latest jobs bill really produce jobs? ," Associated Press writer Jim Abrams outlines opposing sides in the Congressional battle over U.S. government efforts to increase employment: WASHINGTON – When the Senate takes up a jobs bill later this month or early in February, the debate will center on whether it really will create jobs and be worth plunging the government tens of billions of dollars further into debt. Republicans scoff at the "Jobs for Main Street Act" title that House Democrats put on their $174 billion package last month. They refer to it as "son of the stimulus," the $787 billion economic recovery plan of nearly a year ago that they say was ineffective at producing jobs. In its last vote of 2009, the House narrowly passed the bill, 217-212, without a single Republican supporter. Democrats tick off the job prospects from the House bill's $75 billion in infrastructure and public sector spending: tens of ...