--%>

The federal fiscal stimulus

Question: Was the stimulus package passed in 2009 as success?  In answering this question the focus should be the articles on the syllabus, but you should also include opinions of other commentators.   Your answer should also describe why coming to a clear conclusion on this issue is difficult.

Answer:

To start with, the federal fiscal stimulus in 2009 was not as big as it could have been, and as it seems to naked eyes. The federal stimulus was accompanied by a spending cut by the state and local bodies. This, in effect, led to a very small resultant increase in the federal spending.

To discuss the performance of the economy after the stimulus, we have the data to show how the economy is performing. So the FOMC report concludes that there has been an increase in unemployment, a fall in household consumption expenditure, housing sector is still to recover, and the nonresidential structure sector is also in a bad shape. To add to the problems, inflation rate is high due to the high prices of the essential commodities. More so importantly, the tax cuts which were supposed to induce the households to increase their spending, and hence increase the aggregate demand, have mostly failed in their mission. So, overall we may that the economy is still in a bad shape and it may seem easy to assume that the fiscal stimulus has failed to revive the economy.

However, there is something to ponder about here. What would have been the state of the economy had the fiscal stimulus not been provided? Would it have been the same, better or worse? It is true that the tax cuts of 2008 induced only 25% of the households to increase their consumption, and the ARRA stimulus tax cuts were associated with only 13% of households increasing their consumption, nevertheless, there was an increase in the consumption and hence aggregate demand. Households are supposed to smoothen out their consumption rather than acting abruptly to a tax cut. But the point under consideration is that had these tax cuts not taken place, wouldn't the households' and overall economic expenditure had been even lower? The answer is yes. There might have been a downward spiral of declining aggregate demand and spending. The stimulus at least brought some kind of relief.

Therefore, three things come to fore. First, the full gains of the stimulus were not realized due to a simultaneous cut back by state governments. Second, the gains from the stimulus are not as big as expected and the economy is still in a state of uncertainty. Third, the situation could have been even worse in the case of absence of stimulus, however, it this assertion cannot be tested easily.

   Related Questions in Business Economics

  • Q : Problem on Legislature budget XY School

    XY School District has a large number of students in need of remedial instruction. The superintendent of XY School System can allocated her budget between purchasing X units of remedial instruction at a price of $2,000/unit and spending an amount ($Y) on all other sch

  • Q : Illustration of Absolute and Relative

    The price of KnickKnacks is $1 and the price of WigWags has increased with $2 to $3. Therefore:  (w) absolute price of KnickKnacks has decreased and the relative price of WigWags has increased. (x) relative and absolute prices of KnickKnacks have

  • Q : Introduction of the term Cost of

    Give a brief introduction of the term Cost of retained earnings?

  • Q : Resource market for economic capital

    Janet has loaned a start-up coffee house $50,000 and predicts to earn interest from her financial investment. In circular flow model this transaction is an illustration of: (1) An exchange of her saving for interest, via a resource market for the economic capital. (2)

  • Q : Problem on productive contribution

    Suppositions underpinning simple production possibilities frontier models don’t comprise a need that: (i) Net resources are fixed. (ii) All resources are efficiently employed. (iii) Technology is steady. (iv) Resource owners are paid according t

  • Q : Prices are the automatic regulator

    “Prices are the automatic regulator that tends to keep production and consumption in line with each other.”  Explain.

  • Q : Demand supply with the aim of diagrams

    with the aim of diagrams show the difference between A change in demand and A change in quantity demand

  • Q : Guardian implies that there really is

    Evaluate and explain the statements: “Market is its own guardian implies that there really is an invisible hand or taskmaster that watches over the decision makers in the marketplace”

  • Q : Briefly state the pros and cons of

    Briefly state the pros and cons of Corporation?

  • Q : Describe cost of equity shares Briefly

    Briefly describe cost of equity shares? And also write down way to evaluate the cost of equity shares?