As Republicans continue their hypocrisy over the stimulus, the facts are becoming clear. It worked. It really worked:
Imagine if, one year ago, Congress had passed a stimulus bill that really worked.I still think it should have been bigger with fewer tax cuts. But, the important thing is that the stimulus bill both saved and created jobs. This country was teetering on the brink thanks to Bush and the GOP. Obama and the Democratic Congress saved it. And, they're not getting enough credit.
Let’s say this bill had started spending money within a matter of weeks and had rapidly helped the economy. Let’s also imagine it was large enough to have had a huge impact on jobs — employing something like two million people who would otherwise be unemployed right now.
If that had happened, what would the economy look like today?
Well, it would look almost exactly as it does now. Because those nice descriptions of the stimulus that I just gave aren’t hypothetical. They are descriptions of the actual bill.
Just look at the outside evaluations of the stimulus. Perhaps the best-known economic research firms are IHS Global Insight, Macroeconomic Advisers and Moody’s Economy.com. They all estimate that the bill has added 1.6 million to 1.8 million jobs so far and that its ultimate impact will be roughly 2.5 million jobs. The Congressional Budget Office, an independent agency, considers these estimates to be conservative.
Examples of GOP stimulus hypocrisy are on display at DailyKos via the Wall Street Journal, Think Progress via, amazingly enough, FOX News and here thanks to Rachel.
