Well there are many people, often liberal democrats, who complain that the Presidents stimulus has been far too little. I think the liberals might have a point here.
The biases of the original poster? You forget, I approve of essentially everything that Obama has done since he became President. I'm willing to acknowledge sound policy regardless of which party is implementing it, unlike a large number of people in this forum.
Please.
I hope the "large number of people" wasn't a comment directed at me, because I am far from a check the box for the liberal agenda Democrat and I've made that clear many times.
Remember those Budweiser Frog commercials?
You talk out of both sides of your mouth more than those frogs.
You have complained about the deficit numerous times, you clearly take the conservative limited gov't tinkering w/the economy view, what would you and your friends have honestly done had the stimulus been any bigger?
They already want Obama's head now, never mind if there had been a trillion plus stimulus.
For what its worth, it was headed more in that direction until Republicans and a good amount of fiscally responsible in name only Democrats decided to make a big uproar over it.
I think the stimulus could have stood to keep the appx. $40 billion in funding for states that Nelson and Lieberman jettisoned, but other than that, it was plenty big and widespread to be effective. You can't drive anywhere without seeing "project funded by American recovery and reinvestment act" signs.
Plus, economists across the board often compare its effectiveness in improving the economy with the ineffectiveness of the way too small Bush stimulus passed with a Democratic Congress in early 2008.
The reason we are not out of the woods entirely yet has nothing to do with a too small stimulus, it has to do with the deep, financial system ruining recession we just went through. You brought up Reagan, the early 80s recession was deep, and even after strong growth coming out, unemployment numbers still left him near the bottom of the list. Is that Reagan's fault? NO, NO and no again. Its just that, no matter what you do as President, the private sector takes a while to regain all the jobs and confidence after a deep recession.
The late 2000s "great recession" is so much worse than the early 80s because it took down the entire investment banking system and is now bringing Greece, Portugal and maybe the EU with it. That spillover concern has a lot to do with the start/stop nature of the uncertain recovery we see now.
Bottom line, unemployment always peaks after recessions have technically ended(1983, 1992, 2003,late 2009) and takes a bit to go down even after mild recessions. No matter who is President.
Remember though, there are 11 other Presidents on this list. Unfortunately because someone they like happens to be at the bottom of this list, this thread is litered with angry and irational tirades about how the list is "unobjective", "biased", "stupid", and "shameful".
I'm sorry, but its just the factual data that is currently available. Its as unbiased and objective as you can get. Reagan is not high on the list either.
Right now you are pretending that you don't have a history of posting out of context statistics that supposedly back up your views on things.
No one is arguing that this is factual data that 11 other Presidents had during their terms as well.
I am well aware of these numbers, I am well aware Reagan is not near the top, I am well aware people I like and don't like fall up and down the list.
So is everyone else in FYM for the most part.
What is so dishonest about what you are doing is your choice of NOW, less than 2 years into Obama's Presidency when he inherited a nosedive, to compare it to all other Presidencies that either had 4 or 8 full years.
It is you who is asking us to forget your bias and lack of context history here.