http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090608/...obama_stimulus
For the first time, the administration admitted the economic forecasts it used to sell the stimulus were overly optimistic.
"At the time, our forecast seemed reasonable," Vice President Joe Biden's top economic adviser, Jared Bernstein, said Monday, explaining that the White House underestimated the scope of the recession. "Now, looking back, it was clearly too optimistic."
and i remember reading before the plan was voted on that many economists said it was too optimistic.
then there's this:
Obama’s promise to create so many jobs — a vow Vice-President Joe Biden made last month — quickly drew criticism from oponents and economists who have argued his stimulus plan thus far has not delivered. “I think these estimates are overly optimistic,” said Arpitha Bykere, a senior analyst with RGE Monitor. Bykere said it likely will be later this year before any meaningful job creation occurs from stimulus spending. The administration had always viewed the summer as a peak for stimulus spending, as better weather permitted more public works construction and federal agencies had processed requests from states and others. The government reported last week that the number of unemployed continues to rise; the unemployment rate now sits at 9.4 percent, the highest in more than 25 years. Hundreds of thousands of Americans continue to lose jobs each month, although fewer jobs were lost last month than expected. Just how much of an impact Obama’s recovery program had on the pace of job losses is up for debate.
Obama has claimed as many as 150,000 jobs saved or created by his stimulus plan so far,
even as government reports have shown the economy has lost more than 1.6 million jobs since Congress approved funding for the program in February.
Critical
Republicans remain critical of the stimulus spending, slamming it as a big government program that ultimately will do little for recovery.
With only a fraction of the federal money actually spent thus far, it’s premature to give the stimulus plan credit for economic trends, congressional Republicans said last week. “I think the economy is just as likely to begin to recover on its own, wholly aside from this, before much of this has an impact. So I’m very skeptical that this massive sort of spending binge that we’ve engaged in is going to have much of an impact,” said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican. Obama initially offered his stimulus plan as a way to put people back to work, a promise that 3.5 million jobs would be saved or created.
The administration’s predictions that unemployment would rise no higher than 8 percent already have been shattered, leaving Obama’s advisers to caution that job growth takes time, even as recovery spending intensifies.