Thursday, September 2, 2010

Facts Optional

"The paper argued that fiscal stimulus enacted under both Presidents Bush and Obama lowered the unemployment rate by 1.5 percentage points. But it did not measure either the number of people who found work or the effectiveness with which the Obama stimulus created jobs. Instead, it assumed through the use of economic modeling that the recently enacted stimulus was roughly as effective, dollar for dollar, as similar provisions in the past. It then multiplied the past measures of job creating effectiveness by the number of dollars in the current plan and added the result to the current unemployment rate."
http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/did-stimulus-stimulate

Facts - just so danged tedious. I much prefer the flexibility and utility of assumptions and econometric models. Let's face it, you can't manipulate public opinion - you know it, I know it, everyone knows it - by saying "we don't really know how much good the stimulus bill did, if any."

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