Wednesday marked the one-year anniversary of President Barack Obama's economic stimulus plan. The President yesterday stated that the program so far has run smoothly and successfully. Obama acknowledged some of the shortcomings of the program, such as the current high rate of unemployment, stating that the stimulus plan has achieved much in a temporary sense and is an ongoing project.
The question facing the government in the wake of the plan's one-year mark is whether the economic stimulus bill should continue to receive support. The Congressional Budget Office, a nonpartisan agency, estimated last fall that the stimulus program had created somewhere between 600,000 and 1.6 million jobs in America. Though this estimate has a large range, it still differs quite drastically from the 3 million reported lost by members of the Republican Party and 2 million saved as reported by Democrats. The ambiguity surrounding these numbers is partially the cause of America's lack of faith in the stimulus bill. Recent polls reported that a little over 55 percent of Americans opposed the stimulus plan, with about 40 percent supporting it.
While the government has plans to spend all of the money from the stimulus plan in the years to come, many Americans are frustrated and disappointed by the lack of apparent progress and how little of the money has actually been spent. So far, approximately $179 billion has been spent of the $334 billion approved for the stimulus bill.
However, the Daily feels that the way the money has been spent so far indicates that the administration's plan is on the right track. The largest percentage of this money, according to the Congressional Budget Office, has gone to state governments for Medicaid and unemployment insurance. In total there is $207 billion in funding going toward Medicaid, social security, food stamps and unemployment services, all of which will continue to receive stimulus packages except for Medicaid, which will stop receiving stimulus payments at the end of the year. Thus far, $98 billion in total funding has been spent on education through stimulus packages to state governments. It is encouraging that the White House has diverted these two largest chunks of stimulus money to Medicaid and education; both are worthy of the attention they have been given, and both are frequently sidelined in political discourse.
The main objection of those opposed to the stimulus package is that it has not been effective. However, many have forgotten that the most imminent and urgent need of the country when Obama came into office was getting the U.S. economy out of a state of economic crisis. The economy undoubtedly remains in a weak state, but some progress has been made, and we are no longer plummeting down beyond help. We must remember that a year is a short time in which to implement such a monumental economic program, and it would be unreasonable to expect drastic changes throughout the country.
Looking to the future, however, the stabilization of the crisis should not allow the administration to be complacent. Obama should take the opposition to the plan as constructive criticism, and rather than blindly defending the package, his administration must now prove to those who have doubted the success of the package that it was not a quick fix, but instead a long-term recovery strategy. He can do so by continuing to alleviate the country's dire unemployment situation and allocating funds to the social programs that need it most.
