Time: How the Stimulus is Changing America

[flpoljunkie]

(The Republicans, of course, are doing their damndest to sell the stimulus as a failure. Slowing economic recovery is no problem for them--they have great jobs, great health care--and so do their corporate paymasters. Emphasis mine.)

Thursday, Aug. 26, 2010
How the Stimulus Is Changing America

By Michael Grunwald

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 — President Obama's $787 billion stimulus — has been marketed as a jobs bill, and that's how it's been judged. The White House says it has saved or created about 3 million jobs, helping avoid a depression and end a recession. Republicans mock it as a Big Government boondoggle that has failed to prevent rampant unemployment despite a massive expansion of the deficit. Liberals complain that it wasn't massive enough.

It's an interesting debate. Politically, it's awkward to argue that things would have been even worse without the stimulus, even though that's what most nonpartisan economists believe. But the battle over the Recovery Act's short-term rescue has obscured its more enduring mission: a long-term push to change the country. It was about jobs, sure, but also about fighting oil addiction and global warming, transforming health care and education, and building a competitive 21st century economy. Some Republicans have called it an under-the-radar scramble to advance Obama's agenda — and they've got a point. (See TIME's special report "After One Year, A Stimulus Report Card.")

Yes, the stimulus has cut taxes for 95% of working Americans, bailed out every state, hustled record amounts of unemployment benefits and other aid to struggling families and funded more than 100,000 projects to upgrade roads, subways, schools, airports, military bases and much more. But in the words of Vice President Joe Biden, Obama's effusive Recovery Act point man, "Now the fun stuff starts!" The "fun stuff," about one-sixth of the total cost, is an all-out effort to exploit the crisis to make green energy, green building and green transportation real; launch green manufacturing industries; computerize a pen-and-paper health system; promote data-driven school reforms; and ramp up the research of the future. "This is a chance to do something big, man!" Biden said during a 90-minute interview with TIME.

For starters, the Recovery Act is the most ambitious energy legislation in history, converting the Energy Department into the world's largest venture-capital fund. It's pouring $90 billion into clean energy, including unprecedented investments in a smart grid; energy efficiency; electric cars; renewable power from the sun, wind and earth; cleaner coal; advanced biofuels; and factories to manufacture green stuff in the U.S. The act will also triple the number of smart electric meters in our homes, quadruple the number of hybrids in the federal auto fleet and finance far-out energy research through a new government incubator modeled after the Pentagon agency that fathered the Internet.

more...

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2013683,00.html

[tanyev]

1. K & R

[dkf]

2. Okay I am freaking impressed. I had no idea.

I guess now we know where Joe Biden has been.

[DemocraticPilgrim]

13. I'm surprised people don't know the Pres is doing all these things. Pirate crisis resolved, ..

Korean hostages released, more women on the supreme court than ever, green investment, improved health system not as we wish but better, wall street regulation, Iraq war ended check the casualty figures it's a fact... and then foks go not good enough. I mean come on WTF people.

[dkf]

15. Reading this gives me hope about our future.

I actually feel a lot better now. We do have the smarties I was looking for!

[Whisp]

16. don't believe the media.

first rule. ;)

they'd have you think Obama is a do nothing lazy bum, that's a homophobe, a liar, a a a... whatever.

[babylonsister]

3. Rec'd. nt

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

4. Take the information in this article and make 500 TV adds with it. nt

[Sentath]

5. I don't know enough about Mr Grunwald to judge...

But the phrase, "is an all-out effort to exploit the crisis", makes me instantly suspicious and cautious.

Otherwise it sounds really good.

[Pirate Smile]

6. kick

[Phx_Dem]

7. Awesome! People really should take a minute to educate themselves

about the things they are criticizing. They might be surprised. The article even says most people like what's in the Recovery Act, but they dislike the Stimulus Act.

God, Americans are stupid and uninformed.

[JNelson6563]

8. Awesome!

Good stuff! :toast:

[impik]

9. Only after Obama will leave, people would begin to realize how truly great he's been

But then it'll be too late.

[Skittles]

21. bush's fans said the same thing

[smiley_glad_hands]

10. This should be at the top of the page, guess its too positive. Eom

[prolesunited]

11. I know I would have lost my house by now

without the unemployment extensions.

Still would rather have a job...

[BREMPRO]

12. impressive- and the real story of change. after mopping up Bush's monumental messes

this is a fundamental transformation of America. Two things in particular:

1)the way government works- in public/private partnership to stimulate economic activity- with professional oversight and scrutiny. this is not pork- it's a well run nursery of green shoots.

2) a fundamental shift away from a fossil fuel based economy to a clean energy economy.

All these things being done take TIME- where pork sees immediate benefit but long term loss.. Americans are impatient and too many unemployed at the moment- but these changes if supported and seen through will eventually work to reinvigorate the economy and jobs.

The change is being resisted and ridiculed the by status quo- the oil players, the anti-government elites, republican obstructionists and tea party libertarian squawkers who don't have a clue. I WISH the administration was better at selling this. they are doing the right things for the long run, just not educating the public well enough about it. Perhaps this Time article was planned to get more public notice.

One thing i was not aware of was how involved Biden is in this effort and the top scientific panels that are judging the value of each proposal. Why have i not heard of this before?

[dkf]

14. Totally agree on the scientific panels. It blows my mind at the intellectual firepower we have put

To work.

All this time I was grumping we didn't have anything like this and we had it all along. I'm kind of miffed no one is talking about this. I would LOVE If Rachel could interview a bunch of these guys.

[old mark]

17. Why is no one in the administration or the media even talking about this?

Are they waiting for November? Are they calmly waiting for the American people to discover it on their own?

Talk it up guys - if ever we needed a little positive energy, now is the time.
Rec
mark

[Beartracks]

20. Trumpet this! How else will Tampa folks know....

... that the train is stimulus-funded, even while they benefit from the transportation, the jobs, the money, the economic impact, etc.??

We should be hearing everywhere about this stuff! Or do you think most people would hear it in a speech or newscast and just think, "White House spin"?

------------------------

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

18. And they missed the $53+ billion in other education funding through SFSF

(The State Fiscal Stabilization Fund), which saved hundreds of thousands of jobs last year.

[Beartracks]

19. Wow, I had no idea either. Love these quotes...

>>>
The Administration is also financing three of the world's first electric-car plants, including a $529 million loan to help Fisker Automotive reopen a shuttered General Motors factory in Delaware (Biden's home state) to build sedans powered by A123 batteries. Another A123 customer, Navistar, got cash to build electric trucks in Indiana. And since electric vehicles need juice, the stimulus will also boost the number of U.S. battery-charging stations by 3,200%.

"Without government, there's no way we would've done this in the U.S.," A123 chief technology officer Bart Riley told TIME. "But now you're going to see the industry reach critical mass here."
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>>>
The Recovery Act's clean-energy push is designed not only to reduce our old economy dependence on fossil fuels that broil the planet, blacken the Gulf and strengthen foreign petro-thugs but also to avoid replacing it with a new economy that is just as dependent on foreign countries for technology and manufacturing. Last year, exactly two U.S. factories made advanced batteries for electric vehicles. The stimulus will create 30 new ones, expanding U.S. production capacity from 1% of the global market to 20%, supporting half a million plug-ins and hybrids.

The idea is as old as land-grant colleges: to use tax dollars as an engine of innovation.

<<<

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>>>
The Recovery Act floods the zone, targeting a variety of energy problems and providing seed money for firms with a variety of potential solutions. The winners must attract private capital to match public dollars ... and after competing for grants, they still must compete in the marketplace. "They won't all succeed," Rogers says. "But some will, and they'll change the world."
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[Onlooker]

22. Read that article and you just might love the Democrats again n/t