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A plunging stock market, millions of layoffs, and economic crisis are what the latter half of 2008 brought us and served as the ugly picture facing our country in the wake of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, which was signed into law by President Obama in February. The stimulus bill was hailed as “an unprecedented effort to jumpstart our economy, create or save millions of jobs, and put a down payment on addressing long-neglected challenges so our country can thrive in the 21st century” by its political cheerleaders, but has it lived up to the high standard it set for itself?
Unlike its advertisement, which included the promise to create 3.5 million jobs, the stimulus bill hasn’t really helped the average person. Loaded with dec- orative (pork-barrel) spending used to garner support votes, the $787 billion package has put money into scientific research, healthcare, and infrastructure, with measures such as $650 million for the Digital Converter Box Program and monies allotted to a state-owned liquor store. Under the guise of contributing to the well-being of all Americans, the stimulus bill has done nothing but put money into the hands of the already wealthy, and namely, those political adversaries who proponents of the bill wished to keep happy. According to University of Alabama at Birmingham student E.K. Ellis, “They earmarked things like $200 million for birth control funding, which indicates that politicians were proposing, albeit in a roundabout way, the limiting of the number of births in this country in order to partially rescue the economy…and don’t even get me started on the heated swimming pools in Sacramento.” Business owners are seeing the not so positive effects of the stimulus package most clearly. General contractor Lance Olhsson states, “[I] have seen an abrupt downturn in business. The stimulus package was [designed] to increase home buying, but with the restraints banks are putting on borrowing and the increase in mortgage rates…it’s not working.” Although Democrats passed the bill (no Republicans voted it through), the effects are equally unfelt in a bipartisan manner. Only 7 percent of our readers feel that the stimulus package has made their lives better in a definable way. Business owner R. Walker contends, “I am a Democrat and believe me, the stimulus package was not designed to help us out. We are small agricultural business owners and we cannot hang on any longer.” He continued, “I believe that we are repeating history…The days are gone for business owners to be successful in today’s world.” When will we learn the folly of rehashing a method that didn’t work the first time? President Bush’s 2008 stimulus package couldn’t stop our downwardly spiraling economy, yet politicians neglected the recent past as well as the Congressional Budget Office’s warning that this year’s package would have a slight, but negative, long-term effect on our country’s financial stability. We continue to further inhibit future generations in order for a quick fix that never seems to come, no matter how much cash is pumped into the economy. The vast majority of our readers feel that the deficit caused by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 will burden at least five generations. The Congressional Budget Office predicted that this bill would increase the national debt by $184.9 billion in fiscal 2009 and $399.4 billion in fiscal 2010. We have to stop spending so much in order to “cure” ourselves of a recession that the greed of the government, banks, and the people themselves caused. The wreckage of a picture facing our country in the aftermath of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 is an economic valley that must naturally right itself over time. ¶
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