Our Economy Needs at Least $2 Trillion in Stimulus Spending Right Now

By Dean Baker, The Guardian
Posted on July 16, 2009, Printed on July 17, 2009
http://www.alternet.org/story/141344/

When her husband was in the oval office Laura Bush launched an initiative to promote literacy across the country. Unfortunately, there was no comparable effort to promote numeracy in our nation's capital. This has been evident in the discussion of the stimulus among politicians and commentators in the week since the June job numbers were released.

Republicans were anxious to pronounce the stimulus a failure, while Democrats insisted that the package just needed more time, pointing out that most of the money had not yet been spent. Neither assertion can withstand the test of third grade arithmetic.