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CBO's Real Numbers on Stimulus Spending
The Republicans were anxious to tout the Congressional Budget Office's (CBO) preliminary analysis of a portion of the stimulus package, claiming that it showed the plan would have little impact over the next two years. The media were anxious to follow their lead, describing this preliminary and partial analysis as a "CBO Report" on the stimulus.
Now we actually have a CBO report on the stimulus. It projects that $374 billion of the $606 billion of spending appropriated in the bill (61.7 percent) will actually get out the door by the end of 2010. (This number assumes that spending in the 4th quarter of 2010 occurs at the same pace as it did during fiscal year 2010.)
It will be interesting to see if the Republicans are as anxious to use these CBO numbers as they were of the numbers in the preliminary report. It will also be interesting to see if all the media outlets who highlighted the preliminary analysis give the same prominence to CBO's actual report.
--Dean Baker
COMMENTS (6)
The CBO report should not put the Democrats on the defensive. There are two sides to the spending plans - short-term stimulus and long-term infrastructure investment. Even absent the recession, we should be spending this money. The Democrats need to maket that argument more often because the Republicans will only counter with hackneyed ideological soundbites.
Posted by: Michael A. Shea | January 27, 2009 10:57 AM
I will be happy if Senators Corker and Kerry keep on hammering truth about the banking system's insolvency ... which fact stands to expose how a $1tn stimulus package likely will amount to so much pissing in the wind.
Posted by: Sprocket Man | January 27, 2009 12:04 PM
No Sale Baker !
This is exactly WHY we need Medicare for All ...
Two years to get out the door, more months to get going. And guess when this stimulus will hit peak, just in time to juice the economy for the 2012 elections.This isn't a stimulus to help people effected now. This is a stimulus designed for getting Democrtas reelected in 2012.
This is exactly why we need Medicare for All. We could have the stimulus within a year ... everybody with health care coverage, businesses helped, the under and uninsured helped with state and local government coffers being filled once again.
But NO, the Dems are playing politics with the lives of the American people to have a big spending spree for their reelections.
Posted by: mmckinl | January 27, 2009 1:42 PM
mmckinl have you actually examined the numbers in the new Estimate? It would appear not. More than two-thirds of the FY 2007 spending comes in the form of direct spending on such things as Medicaid ($33 bn), unemployment ($21 bn including Cobra extension) and SSI ($5 bn). Moreover if you do a little interpolation the vast majority of the spending would seem to be scheduled by Spring/Summer 2011. Spending for FY 2012 is just about half of that for FY 2011 ($53 billion vs $105 bn) and given the pace of spending it looks like a lot of that ends up coming in Q1 2012, i.e. Q4 of calender year 2011.
The idea that this whole think is focused on 2012 just doesn't accord with the actual numbers. Instead when examined by category of spending it clearly appears that what can be spent fast is spent fast with most out year spending devoted to categories dominated by large scale and hence longer term infrastructure projects (energy, water projects, transportation). So maybe a little less bolding and a little more numeric analysis would serve you well here. I don't see that your thesis holds up well at all.
Posted by: Bruce Webb | January 27, 2009 2:31 PM
Shoot. In the first line I meant FY 2009. Something that I hope was clear in context.
Posted by: Bruce Webb | January 27, 2009 2:34 PM
Stop Dreaming Start Action
Posted by: rusli zainal sang visioner | August 28, 2009 12:13 AM