Despite its massive $800 billion cost, there is little evidence that the 2009 economic stimulus cured the recession. The recession had already ended in the summer of 2009 before the vast majority of the stimulus had even been implemented. And the sluggish economic recovery – even accounting for the severity of the recession – not only performed worse than the White House and CBO stimulus projections, it even performed worse than their “zero-stimulus” projections.
This is not new. Fiscal stimulus laws have consistently failed to meet their own metrics over the past 50 years.
Brian Riedl is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute. Follow him on Twitter @Brian_Riedl.
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