By Dale McFeatters
Scripps Howard News Service
On the one-year anniversary of its passage, President Barack Obama made strong claims for the success of the $787 billion stimulus package, or ``recovery act," as the White House prefers to call it.
The act, the president said, averted a second Great Depression, saved the jobs of 2 million Americans who would otherwise be unemployed and is on track to save or create another 1.5 million jobs.
And it was instrumental in reversing the course of the economy, from shrinking by over 6 percent in the first quarter of 2009 to expanding nearly 6 percent in the fourth quarter.
Statistically, the economy is on the road to recovery, and, as Obama spoke, there were positive reports on industrial production and home construction. But, as the president pointed out, ``it doesn't feel like much of a recovery."
That's because of the huge damage the recession has inflicted on the economy ― 8 million jobs lost since its onset at the end of 2007.
Obama took office during what now looks like the nadir of the recession and, not even president for a month, felt impelled to act boldly. Failure to act, he said, ``would have led to catastrophe."
Some credible economists say he didn't act boldly enough, that the stimulus should have been much bigger. In any case, he acted without much help from the Republicans, who, Obama says, attack the bill to score political points ``and then show up at the ribbon-cutting ceremonies for (stimulus) projects in their districts."
While the stimulus bill undoubtedly played at least some role in the embryonic recovery, can the bill be judged as a success or failure? Have we really gotten anything for all that money? The answer is: It's too soon to tell.
In an analysis of stimulus spending, the Wall Street Journal notes that only one-third of the $787 billion was spent in the first year of the program, and much of that was on quick fixes like payments to states and local governments to avert layoffs of teachers and emergency responders.
Still to come, according to the Journal figures, is the bulk, $160 billion versus the $20 billion spent last year, of the infrastructure money ― roads and bridges, rail lines, water projects, what most people think of as stimulus. And also still to come is by far the greater part of the $288 billion in tax cuts in the bill.
That surely will boost gross domestic product this year, but we'll have to wait and see whether the stimulus bill is a temporary but costly patch on the economy ― or, as Vice President Biden, the stimulus czar, claims, the foundation for long-term growth.
Dale McFeatters is an editorial writer of Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service (www.scrippsnews.com).