Stephen-
The issue is not that the unemployment rate has gone from 8.1% to 10.2% since the stimulus. The issue is that without the stimulus the unemployment would probably be 12% or 13%.

Look at the net change in payroll count chart:
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_5ieXw28ZUpg/SvQ5Z16iD-I/AAAAAAAABZA/uNCZl7nGCQg/s1600-h/unemploy.png

without the stimulus, the economy would have crashed.

The tax-cuts-create-jobs myth is pure bunk. Bush cut taxes for the right, deficits rose and the economy tanked. Without the tax revenue, infrastructure was underfunded and state budgets turned red. This is the same nonsense tax-cut talking point that Sarah Palin repeats.

I agree that “Created or saved” is a poor phrase. The meaning is “without what we did it would have been this much worse”. Given the rate the economy was failing when Obama took office, I think millions of jobs have been saved that would otherwise have been lost.

When I was young, there was a commonly used, albeit inelegant, expression: “Figures don’t lie; but liars sure do figure.”

I am reminded of that expression by the mindless use of figures by Candidate Welsh. Any student of logic will see the fallacy in what he asserts as reasoning.

He concludes that the stimulus program has failed based upon the fact that the unempoloyment rate has risen from 8.1% to 10.2% between the signing of the law in February and today. Sounds attractive, doesn’t it? The fallacy is that there is no way of knowing what the unemployment rate would have been today without the stimulus bill.

It is possible that the unemployment rate, without the stimulus, could be 12, 13, or even 15 percent or more. If that is so, then the stimulus is a legislative miracle. There simply is no way of knowing.

Therefore it is impossible to conclude logically that the stimulus bill has failed. Politically? Well that’s another matter. Who needs logic when there’s an unprovable political assertion to be made? By baselessly throwing around figures to rerach a predetermined, politically advantageous “conclusion”, Candidiate Welsh can perhaps score political points — except with anyone who cares to think about what he says.

Lee,

You are forgetting the premise that was posited during the “Stimulus” debate. The current administration said that we needed to pass the stimulus right away to stop the unemployment from reaching 9%. Given the definition of failure (nonperformance of something due, required, or expected), I’d say that sufficient evidence has been presented to reach Welch’s conclusion. We are now above 10% unemployment, and the adminstration has not met the goals that they themselves have set forth.

FYI – Using the term “logic” three times in an argument is unwarranted and does nothing to bolster the validity of one’s own conclusion.

Well put Steve.

It is only fair for us to judge the efficacy of the stimulus by the metric laid out by the President’s own chief of staff. When the stimulus passed Rahm Emmanuel said, “the most important number … is how many jobs it produces, not how many votes it gets.” (NYT, November 16, 2009) So as Steve ably points out, even by the administration’s own metric, the stimulus is a bigger failure than many could have predicted.

And as for this silly little myth that we somehow are better off than we would have been without the stimulus, I direct you to http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_djgssszshgM/Svaa3ufoUHI/AAAAAAAABDY/vX5PAiWKTfM/s1600-h/stimulus-vs-unemployment-october-dots.gif. The attached link takes the chart produced by the Obama administration that it used to illustrate the proported effect on unemployment with a stimulus and without a stimulus. The chart attached then was modified to show the actual unemployment over that time period. The evidence shows that unemployment is even worse than the Obama administration’s own data claimed it would be without the stimulus. In other words, according to administration data and calculations, we would have been better off without the stimulus.

Given this data, it is hard to understand how one might come to the counterfactual conclusion that having no stimulus could have made things worse. It is even more difficult to further suspend disbelief and attempt to contend that the first stimulus was not enough and now we need a bigger, larger one.

Good work Steve. Cannot wait for you to get to DC so you can try to talk some sense into those folks inside the Beltway.

These criticisms show a narrow understanding of the stimulus and economics in general. Candidate Welch would do well to either brush up on his basic econ. or avoid discussing the topic. His ignorance is appalling.

You guys at the top are saying that the economy is better off because of the stimulous. Guess what, we have barely even spent it. It hasn’t done anything. All we did is throw money away and decrease the value of the dollar, and if you included underemployment, we are around 17%. Hey, if the economy does get any better we could always tax our way out of it. That should make things better.

Greg K. Do tell what you mean? Don’t just criticize. I think your point is useless without something underlying it.

Chesco Tom-
Nice try with the misleading “projection” graph.

There were two sets of projects that the Obama team used. The lower unemployment estimates are from BEFORE the Bush administration gave them the final quarter data. Give that additional data, the Obama projections were revised, and match closely with what we are actually seeing.

This is the standard GOP lie to take an early projection based upon incomplete data, that was revised with newer data, and continue using the OLDER projection as though it were the final version.

At the time the Stimulus was passed, the unemployment was at 8%.

The graph itself could not possibly have been the chart the Obama team used to make the argument for the stimulus at the time it was passed.

At the time the stimulus was passed, the projection was unemployment hitting 10% with the stimulus and 12%-15% without.

Also, the stimulus plan is a two-year plan, not a two-month plan. You can’t build a house, the roof and the foundation a the same time.

The plan has stabilized the economy (from free-fall) to provide a foundation from which to rebuild.

When someone says that we need to pass the stimulus now to avoid destuction, I would expect them to actually spend it, and who needs a two year plan? In two years we would be out of this recession anyway. We never needed the stimulus.

Welch is right on the money. I don’t understand how you can call a man with his track record “appalling” or “ignorant.” The stimulus didn’t stimulate anything…most of the money hasn’t been spent, and of the money that has gone out, the accounting has been a disaster with phantom districts getting millions. And that’s the basic problem: government has never proven itself able to manage ANYTHING let alone something as massive and complicated as our economy. The stimulus created dozens of BRAND NEW and PERMANANT (i.e. not stimulative, but long term) federal departments and programs.

At the end of the day, we need jobs. Jobs provide income, opportunity and a way to improve oneself. Obama chose to focus of bailing out Detroit and Wall Street. He did not focus on actually creating jobs and it’s costing him. Thankfully, we have people like Welch who actually have experience creating jobs and understand how the heavy hand of intrenched beauracracy (i.e. gov’t) can hinder a small business and kill jobs.

THE ONLY JOB CREATED ARE ON THE GOVERNMENTS PAY ROLL, FUTHER MORE THEY RAN AROUND PUTTING UP THE B.H.O. STIMMULAS PROJECT SIGNS UP ON ROAD WORK UNDER WAY FOR YEARS, AND THE FOOLISH AMONG USE SWOON AND WET THEIR PANTS OVER IT! MAYBE UNDER GARMENT MANUFACTURING WENT UP! OOPS I’M BAD THOSE WOULD BE OVER SEAS JOBS!

What I find confusing about this op-ed is the fact that Mr. Welch somewhat arbitrarily determined that November 19, 2009 was the deadline for deciding whether or not the stimulus program worked.

By my understanding, this was one of the worst (if not THE worst) recessionary periods in modern history. Perhaps nine months is an unfair point at which to declare “the ’stimulus’ has failed to achieve its goals.”

The premise here seems forced and unstable.

Grek K, the views stated by Mr. Welch are similar comments made by most conservative economists. I believe it is you who should read Econ 101 before you post a comment next time.

I believe we needed some kind of stimulus last year but a stimulus is supposed to enter the system right away (provide a “shock” to the economy). This stimulus had so many political attachments to it that it just added to our debt and did very little to create jobs.

PA Guy, I think most economists knew the stimulus was a joke after 3 months so yes I think it is fair to say it is a joke after 9 months. It is not just the Obama stimulus. Even Bush’s stimulus was a joke. Both parties prefer passing bills that give them good press rather passing something with substance that doesn’t always look sexy in the papers.

The fact is, we need new blood and term limits in DC.

Two things Welch brings to the 6th debate.

“I think most economists knew the stimulus was a joke after 3 months”

Like which ones?

“FYI – Using the term “logic” three times in an argument is unwarranted and does nothing to bolster the validity of one’s own conclusion.”

Dave the Grammarian; not Diano

Explain the logic of your comment, if you can. Would you say the same if the comment was 5,000 words? 10,000? Would you same the same about a football comment using the word touchdown 3 times?

You didn’t challenge my central point, which is that, without the stimulus, the unemployment rate could be much higher.

“Robert Barro, Professor of Economics at Harvard University, criticizes the recently passed federal stimulus package as a “terrible piece of legislation,” and calls for permanent changes to the tax structure to spur economic growth”

Lee,

I sure did challenge your central point, but you continue to ingnore the fact that the administration’s argument was twofold. First, they said unemployment would be much higher without the stimulus. They also said unemployment would not reach 9% with its implimentation. Thus, the administration, not having lived up to the goals it put forth, has FAILED.
There are two things we have to think about when judging the stimulus on the grounds that unemployment would be higher: 1)at the end of the day, how much higher it would have actually been, and 2)what kind of employment are we seeing? If unemployment exceeds 11%, which it likely will, will having spend nearly a trillion dollars have been worth it to stop unemployment from reaching 15%, a mere spike of an additional 3%? Also, is it worth spending nearly a trillion dollars to employ people with government jobs that produce little?

Dave, I appreciate your encouragement. Factcheck.org uses the same chart so I do not understand why you think it is “lie” let alone some half-baked GOP conspiracy. If things were actually worse as you claim, why didn’t Romer, author of the study and by the time of the stimulus bill, a member of the administration, produce a revised chart? Instead this is the chart used by President Obama in his news conference pumping the stimulus. This is the chart used by the NYT and FactCheck as the official chart used by the Obama administration. If you are correct (which I do not concede you are), I have no idea why they choose not to update their own chart.

I do agree that a recovery does not happen overnight. It takes time. However, the original chart and the words of the administration seemed to indicate that without this bill things would be immediately worse off. Instead, we have the stimulus and things are much worse than if there had been no stimulus according to their own numbers. Maybe they should pull a mea cupla like Joe Sestak and admit that they were wrong. Instead they stand to be judged as a failure based on their own metrics.

Its too bad we didn’t have a more thorough debate about the stimulus prior to its passage. Perhaps we could have hashed these issues out beforehand… but then again transparency is an oft-overlooked casualty in this administration.

Keep up the good work Steve.

I respect Sestak for admitting that the stimulus was wrong. The way things are going, every democrat who faces election is going to be back tracking on the stimulus. Nothing the Dems propose has helped this country and they know it.

Tom-
The Phantom Districts is a myth that has been debunked. It’s a result stuff like of legitimate companies that legitimately got money, but there are two transposed digits on their zip-code or some other typo in their record. Thus, a database query attempting to match by zip-code ran would run into difficulty. But, kudos for pulling up a misleading talking point! Hannity would be proud of you.

“government has never proven itself able to manage ANYTHING” Really?? Are you calling for a dismantling of the military?

Jay-
Ironically, it was Republicans who were against the bill having too much pork, that added pork for their districts.

ChescoTom-
I found the chart on FactCheck. It was from a study completely January 9th, 2009, before they had the full picture of the 4th quarter of 2008. The author of the study, Bernstein, gave the following explanation:

“Well, first of all, let’s be very clear about this point. Our forecast at that time was right in the middle of every other forecast, and in fact, if we had had a forecast that was much worse than that, we would have been an outlier. We also would have been correct, it turned out. But the point is that the contraction of the economy in the fourth quarter – you should recall back then that was – the magnitude of that contraction was far larger than was expected. And so at the time our forecast seemed reasonable. Now, looking back, it was clearly too optimistic.

What I will say, though, and I don’t want to lose sight of this, is that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, in our view, according to our analysis, will lead to an unemployment rate by the end of next year of 1.5 to 2 points lower than would otherwise be the case. And that is the direct result of the kinds of programs and projects we’re talking about today, putting literally millions of people back to work who in the absence of this program would not be getting fully employed.”

The chart was out-of-date the minute the 4th quarter numbers were released. Though the chart wasn’t revised, Bernstein’s point remains that the job losses would have been higher without the stimulus.
That they went with an estimate that was is the middle of the various projections at the time, goes against the argument that they oversold the plan. Projections that wound up matching what actually happened were outliers, considering that the 4th quarter was not known to be as bad as it was.

Factcheck.org also stated: “So Bernstein is sticking to the prediction that unemployment will be substantially lower with the stimulus bill than without. On that point there’s good economic theory to support him.”

Brett-
I think Sestak is cutting his own throat (and the throats of other Dems) by not standing up for his vote. I think the Dems saved the country from another Great Depression, and the results will be more apparent by next year’s elections. Sestak is distancing himself from upcoming success.
Of course, when public sentiment turns back to appreciated the stimulus, I fully expect Sestak to change his tune (again) and tout his support for it.

Dave

Assuming for the sake of logical discussion that one of the Administration’s arguments for the stimulus was incorrect (i.e., that the unmployment rate would not exceed 9%), it does not necessarily mean that the stimulus has failed. Rather, it would be one of the arguments made which failed. If the stimulus has kept the unemployment rate below where it would have gone without the stimulus, the program was a success.

As much as you hope that the stimulus fails for your own selfish political reasons — our country and those poor suckers who have lost their job be damned — there is no way of knowing what the unemployment rate would be without the stimulus. I, for one, applaud the Obama administration for at least making an effort to help create jobs instead of merely crying that “the sky is falling and it’s the Democrats fault”.

I wish the Republicans would put their talent and effort into trying to improve the stimulus program, instaed of spending all of their time criticizing it amd hoping that it doesn’t create jobs. It’s a sad state of affairs when the Republican Party would rather see people be unemployed just so they can discover a political issue for themselves.

Some day, perhaps, the Republican Party actually will try to do something positive and beneficial for the country and for Americans.

Looks like we are heading towards another great depression regardless of the stimulus. The stimulus hasn’t created any jobs in the private sector, and If you want to talk about success I agree with you. Next year we will see results just like we saw in New Jersey and Virginia. Sestak is right to flee from the stimulus.

The above poster seems to have attempted to address me, but put my name in the “name of poster” field instead.

I disagree with everything he posted.

SNL has some insights into Obama Administration’s fiscal plans http://hotair.com/archives/2009/11/22/video-snl-destroys-obama-over-spending/

It is highly unlikely that Obama Administration’s plans will reduce unemployment. Cutting the Payroll tax, reduces cost of employment to employees and increases income to employees and is direct stimulus. Reducing cost of employing people may well increase employment more quickly than bank bailouts and government takeover of GM, Chrylser, GMAC, AIG, Citigroup.

I’m happy to – almost every economic indicator is improving except unemployment, which, while the increase has slowed, is still going up. This is to be expected because unemployment is what we call a “lagging” economic indicator. That means that it reflects policies well in the past and takes a long time to reflect new policies. President Obama hasn’t even been in office a full year; however, his policies are starting to have a positive effect on the economy and we expect unemployment to start going down early next year, reflecting the policies that were instituted this year.

Basic econ and it doesn’t take a genius to figure it out. Mr. Welch’s argument is seductively simple at first glance, but anything more than a superficial look at it shows that it is painfully ignorant of the bigger picture.

Any questions?

Mr. Sestak is chirping that the stimulus was wrong to exploit widespread voter perception and disaffection to that effect.