American Enterprise Institute: Without Obama's Stimulus-Economy Would Have Done Worse-NO Recovery

[kpete]

Today there must be a ton of Representatives and Senators quietly shunting themselves away from reality. The American Enterprise Institute (AEI), a main player in Conservative thought and a place where many of the architects of our failed military adventure in Iraq came out with their 2010 economic forecast today.

What is going to be so troubling for Republican legislators to hear from this trusted Conservative source is the following;

*****The real economy also responded to the massive stimulus but remained heavily dependent on it. In the United States, growth during the second half of 2009 probably averaged about 3 percent. Absent temporary fiscal stimulus and inventory rebuilding, which taken together added about 4 percentage points to U.S. growth, the economy would have contracted at about a 1 percent annual rate during the second half of 2009.
http://www.aei.org/outlook/100928
(emphasis added)

You read that right, AEI is saying that without the stimulus plan that not a single Republican Representative voted for and that many Republican Senators have lambasted for the last year, the entire U.S. economy would have contracted by at least 1%. As bad as things are today, without that huge injection of money, which is still not over, we would have had no recovery at all in the economy last year.

more:
http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/22781

[Don Caballero]

1. Another Reich Wing talking point dead

The stimulus plan has been an overwhelming success bringing our economy from the brink of absolute disaster. Another monumental win for our President.

[AnnieBW]

2. Whatever they're smoking at the AEI

I hope they keep smoking it! :D

[struggle4progress]

3. AEI is a think-tank that argues for corporate interests, without much effort at intellectual honesty

Unsurprisingly, the financial corporations were happy to get a big hand-out, so (also unsurprisingly) AEI will say nice things about the hand-out

[Nikki Stone1]

4. +1

and Bingo.