When Barack Obama took office, the economy had crashed and everyone knew that unemployment would be the big test of his economic policy. He demanded action from Congress in line with the recommendations of his economic council, headed by Christine Romer, who predicted that a massive stimulus package could keep unemployment from going higher than 8%, and that a failure to pass such a bill would cause joblessness to peak over 9%. Breitbart and Naked Emperor News gives us a flashback to the early days of the 111th Congress and their sales job in getting almost $800 billion — whose impact has yet to be felt in employment figures:
Hopefully, we will start to see some rebound this week in American employment. That will have less to do with Porkulus than the natural balancing of the economy, which government intervention stymied in 2009. Romer’s group predicted that much whether or not Porkulus passed, only at lower levels than what actually happened. Unfortunately, no one expects a massive expansion in job creation in 2010, which means that the American economy will limp through most of this year while employment likely improves only slightly, leaving us at generational highs in unemployment and economic stagnation.
In other words, it may not just be the epic fail of 2009.
