United Liberty

Christina Romer, a White House economic advisor, says we’ve already seen the biggest impact from the so-called “stimulus”:

A top White House economist says spending from the $787 billion economic stimulus has already had its biggest impact on economic growth and will likely not contribute to significant expansion next year.

Christina Romer, the chair of President Barack Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers, said Thursday that the $194 billion already spent gave a jolt to the economy that contributed to growth in the second and third quarters of the year. She told a congressional panel that by the middle of next year, the impact of the stimulus will level off. Romer said spending so far has saved or created 600,000 to 1.5 million jobs but warned that unemployment will remain high, above 9.5 percent, through the end of 2010.

So, uh, that’s it? Weren’t we told that unemployment would not rise above 7.9% and that this spending, funded entirely by debt, would create millions of jobs? Well, we’ve lost a lot more jobs than with the stimulus than the Obama Administration said we would. Any talk of job creation from this spending is an empty talking point that isn’t backed by reality.

As you can see below, unemployment is almost 2% higher with the stimulus bill. Since the beginning of the year, a couple millions jobs have been lost.

After reading this story, Russ Roberts wrote over at Cafe Hayek, “So if the biggest impact has already happened and the effect is going to level off, can we have the other $593 billion back, please?” Unfortunately, the White House isn’t taking questions from, you know, people with common sense.