- Joined
- Nov 13, 2006
- Messages
- 7,102
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- Location
- Sacramento, CA
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- Political Leaning
- Slightly Liberal
The stimulus obviously helped, but it helped government employees and unions mostly - as this poll indicates, the private sector had little use for it; the multiplier effect served to increase aggregate demand, as Don pointed out, but there is no way to accurately or precisely quantify that effect without making some assumptions and inferences.
To me, it was a poorly constructed spending project; it was nothing more than a slush fund for the private sector, really. A more targeted and temporary stimulus with a larger emphasis on tax breaks and private sector incentives would have worked better.
The stimulus was about a third tax breaks, I assume that wasn't enough?