5 Years After Stimulus, Obama Says It Worked
Source: Time
Five years ago Monday, President Barack Obama visited the Denver Museum of Nature and Science to sign the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, his $800 billion stimulus bill. At the time, the U.S. economy was losing 800,000 jobs a month. In the fourth quarter of 2008, it had contracted at an 8% annual rate, a Depression-level free fall.
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And so it did. The stimulus quickly became a national joke, mocked by the right as a massive boondoggle and by the left as a pathetic pittance. A year after it passed, the percentage of Americans who believed it had created jobs was lower than the percentage of Americans who believed Elvis was alive. But after an epic financial crisis, the Recovery Act did launch a recovery. The economy started growing again in summer 2009. It started adding jobs again in spring 2010.
This week, the White House will release a report documenting how the stimulus spelled the difference between contraction and growth for much of Obama’s first term. Politically, the White House lost the argument over the stimulus long ago, but for Recovery Act obsessives — O.K., maybe I’m the only one — it’s still nice to see the facts in black and white.
The main conclusion of the 70-page report — the White House gave me an advance draft — is that the Recovery Act increased U.S. GDP by roughly 2 to 2.5 percentage points from late 2009 through mid-2011, keeping us out of a double-dip recession. It added about 6 million “job years” (a full-time job for a full year) through the end of 2012. If you combine the Recovery Act with a series of follow-up measures, including unemployment-insurance extensions, small-business tax cuts and payroll tax cuts, the Administration’s fiscal stimulus produced a 2% to 3% increase in GDP in every quarter from late 2009 through 2012, and 9 million extra job years, according to the report.
Read more: http://swampland.time.com/2014/02/17/economic-stimulus-recovery-act-anniversary-obama/?xid=gonewsedit&google_editors_picks=true
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If he didn't give all that money to the job creators, then what would we do?
Bet you want a pony too!
The hell you say. 
The only people that can "change" The System,
are the professional politicians that are dependents and products OF The System.
How do we convince them to represent us and not their 1% owners?
How many professional politicians are willing to say "Goodbye" to the perks of cushy 1% living
for themselves and their Class by biting the Hand that is Feeding Them?
"It's the best there is," Doc Daneeka agreed.”
― Joseph Heller, Catch-22
I'm not entirely cynical.
I have some hope.
Many of our neighbors in Latin America have successfully taken their governments from the hands of their 1% through near bloodless Ballot Box Revolutions.
They have given us the Blue Print for change.
When the American Working Class and the Poor realize WE have more in common with each other
than we have with the 1% and their employees in Washington,
THEN we can have change too.
Spread the WORD.
VIVA Democracy!
We outnumber them.
I'm a strong swimmer and there is no guarantee I would have drowned. 
Fallacy in your argument...(I took ethics in college and got a B-!)
