Stimulus Update: Week 15

Several readers have asked Why we report on the Obama Stimulus so often.

President Obama seeks to radically change America.  To sell these ideas he and the media claim government experts can achieve near-miraculous results by borrowing and spending trillions on government intervention in the private economy.  Since the Stimulus was the Administration’s first adventure in massive, borrow-spend intervention we believe it should be monitored closely to compare actual results with the promises and claims made before it passed.

The stimulus was hyped as a most urgent imperative to  immediately “stop the hemorrhaging of jobs.”  Clearly it has failed to measure up to the hype.  Since the media have largely abandoned any reporting on the progress of the stimulus package we are filling the void with weekly updates.

Unemployment claims averaged 553,000 per week in December and January as the stimulus package was being written.  Since the stimulus passed job losses have been over 600,000 every week.

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