This is What $700 Billion Gets You These Days?

We have all heard the saying that a dollar ain’t what it used to be.

So what can you get for 700 BILLION of those dollars?

Apparently not much.

Sheesh!!

This figure is of course the official Obama White House cost estimate of the so-called “stimulus” package passed in early 2008. You know, the one we must have right now or else unemployment will sky rocket, the economy will disintegrate, the nation as we know it will cease to exist, cats & dogs living together, etc etc etc.

As of writing this article unemployment is at 9.6% and holding steady. MasterPo supposes that’s an improvement over the 10.1% it was earlier in this fiasco, though if 5-tenths of a percentage is cause for celebration…

You may recall President Obama’s editorial in the Washington Post on February 4, 2009 in which he said:

"And if nothing is done, this recession might linger for years. Our economy will lose 5 million more jobs. Unemployment will approach double digits. Our nation will sink deeper into a crisis that, at some point, we may not be able to reverse."

(By the way, when was the last time a sitting President wrote an editorial for a newspaper??)

On page four of President Obama’s “stimulus” plan document it shows a now famous (infamous?) chart. The chart illustrates that without a “stimulus” the unemployment figure will rise to 9% in 2009 before slowly declining. But with the “stimulus” will ‘only’ rise to 8% before quickly declining.

So we procured $700 BILLION (that the nation does not have to spend, had to borrow) and the unemployment still went to 10% anyway?!

The person who draw up that chart should get a Nobel Prize. They seem to be handing them out to anyone these days anyway.

In truth (if that is the correct word to use) only about $400 BILLION of the “stimulus” was actually spent to date, which begs the question why??

Initially some pundits thought Obama was holding off until spring or even summer 2010 to spend the bulk of the “stimulus” to give Democrats a boost at the polls come November. But that hasn’t happened (the spending that is).

Now pundits think he is holding off until later in 2011 or even early 2012 to spend the balance in order to give his own re-election campaign a boost. If true, incredible to consider that an American President would play such games with the future of the nation and the people for his own gain!
Further, if true, spending in 2011 or 2010 may not work either! By that time the damage to the economy may be so severe that even multi-billion dollar spending can’t resolve it in any meaningful time frame.

Whatever the reasoning, it’s clear that $700 BILLION doesn’t produce the results the plan was sold on.

So what’s plan B?
And what will that cost?
And where will that money come from?

Let the interesting times roll on.