Once in a while, seemingly when I need it most, I can’t remember the list of President Obama’s “big ticket” policy enactments. Thankfully, Michael Boskin listed them in a column in the Wall Street Journal on September 8, 2011:
- $825 billion stimulus package
- Public-Private Investment Partnership to buy toxic assets from the banks
- “Cash for Clunkers”
- Home-buyers credit
- Auto bailouts
- Five versions of foreclosure relief
- Numerous lifelines to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac
- Frank-Dodd
- Healthcare reform (Obamacare)
- Energy subsidies
Boskin points out that the stimulus bill cost $280,000 per job – by the administration’s estimates of jobs “created or saved,” and much more using more realistic estimates.
Results:
- Fraction of the population working is the lowest since 1983 (58.1%)
- Long-term unemployment is by far the highest since the Great Depression (45.9%)
- Job growth during the first two years of recovery after a severe recession is the slowest in postwar history (.5%)
- Home-ownership rate is the lowest since 1965 and foreclosures are at a post-Depression high (59.7%)
- Share of Americans paying income taxes is the lowest in the modern era (49%)
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