Projected impact of the stimulus - in Texas

AMERICAN RECOVERY AND REINVESTMENT PLAN:

THE IMPACT FOR TEXAS

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan is a nationwide effort to create jobs, jumpstart growth and transform our economy for the 21st century. Across the country, this plan will help businesses create jobs and families afford their bills while laying a foundation for future economic growth in key areas like health care, clean energy, education and a 21st century infrastructure. In Texas, this plan will deliver immediate, tangible impacts, including:

•

Creating or saving 285,700 jobs over the next two years. Jobs created will be in a range of industries from clean energy to health care, with over 90% in the private sector. [Source: White House Estimate based on Romer and Bernstein, “The Job Impact of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan.” January 9, 2009.]

•

Providing a making work pay tax cut of up to $1,000 for 8,170,000 workers and their families. The plan will make a down payment on the President’s Making Work Pay tax cut for 95% of workers and their families, designed to pay out immediately into workers’ paychecks. [Source: White House Estimate based on IRS Statistics of Income]

•

Making 346,000 families eligible for a new American Opportunity Tax Credit to make college affordable. By creating a new $2,500 partially refundable tax credit for four years of college, this plan will give 3.8 million families nationwide – and 346,000 families in Texas – new assistance to put college within their reach. [Source: Center on Budget and Policy Priorities analysis of U.S. Census data]

•

Offering an additional $100 per month in unemployment insurance benefits to 677,000 workers in Texas who have lost their jobs in this recession, and providing extended unemployment benefits to an additional 125,000 laid-off workers. [Source: National Employment Law Project]

•

Providing funding sufficient to modernize at least 937 schools in Texas so our children have the labs, classrooms and libraries they need to compete in the 21st century economy. [Source: White House Estimate]

In addition to this immediate assistance for Texas, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan will help transform our economy by:

•

Doubling renewable energy generating capacity over three years, creating enough renewable energy to power 6 million American homes.

•

Computerizing every American’s health record in five years, reducing medical errors and saving billions of dollars in health care costs.

•

Launching the most ambitious school modernization program on record, sufficient to upgrade 10,000 schools.

•

Enacting the largest investment increase in our nation’s roads, bridges and mass transit systems since the creation of the national highway system in the 1950s.

The "FDR Failed" Myth | OurFuture.org

The "FDR Failed" Myth | OurFuture.org: 

"In fact, like every decade between 1850 and 1990, the 1930s suffered two distinct downturns. The official U.S. Business Cycle Dating Committee established that the downturn that began in August 1929 ended in March 1933 with the remarkable economic expansion that started within days of FDR’s bold—if trial and error—New Deal programs. By any normal definition, the Great Depression had ended by late 1936, with all major indicators surpassing their previous peaks.
A second cyclical downturn officially began in May 1937 when FDR, always a fiscal conservative, mistakenly thought the economy had become self-sustaining and slashed public spending programs to balance the budget. These harsh and premature spending cuts caused another severe recession that ended after 13 months in June 1938.
Even in this severe downturn, annual GDP did not fall back below its 1929 peak. And although many suffered and most economic measures did fall back below their 1929 levels, not one fell anywhere close to its March 1933 low. For example, although industrial production fell sharply in the 1937-38 recession, at its low point, in April 1938, it remained 49 percent above its level of March 1933.
When the economy again contracted sharply in late 1937 and early 1938, FDR quickly reversed course and rapid growth immediately began again. GDP soared by 10.9 percent in 1939 and industrial production soared by 23 percent."

O.k., all you free market fundamentalists, take a look at this and tell me what you think...

then I can tell you that you're wrong - and at least I'll have some data to back me up.

The "FDR Failed" Myth | OurFuture.org

The "FDR Failed" Myth | OurFuture.org: 

"At such a moment, it is imperative to expose a dangerous popular myth regarding the efficacy of President Roosevelt’s actions: that it was not the programs of the New Deal, but only the placing of the nation on a wartime footing years later, that restored the health of the nation’s economy.
This belief, though widely held, cannot stand up to even the most basic economic analysis."

Joe Lauria: Wall Street Hated FDR Too

Joe Lauria: Wall Street Hated FDR Too: 

"FDR was right to claim after his 1936 re-election that he had saved capitalism from the excesses of a communist or anarchist revolt. There was great anger in the land and labor unrest then, the kind we are seeing in Europe today and possibly again in America? It is not widely understood today how popular communism and anarchism had become in the U.S. Several public buildings were bombed and businessmen and their allies in Congress genuinely feared social revolution."

It was Marx didn't foresee.  Capitalism reforming just enough to save itself.  Obama is just trying to save capitalism.  Isn't that what you people want?  

Me?  I say the sooner we get one world gov't and unregulated markets the sooner we get to the revolution...

in the immortal words of two time Presideng George W. Bush,

"Bring it on!"