In January, President Obama pressed for an $800 billion economic “stimulus” package to turn the economy around. Though the bill largely consisted of increased spending on traditional liberal priorities, the President claimed that it would “create or save” 3.5 million jobs. The President’s economic advisors predicted that unemployment would rise to 9 percent by 2010 if Congress did not pass the stimulus bill, but that with the stimulus unemployment would stay below 8 percentage points.
Empire Center director Edmund McMahon writes in the New York Post: The House of Representatives this week is expected to pass a federal stimulus package that could pump at least $17 billion of noncapital funding directly into New York’s state and local government coffers over the next two years. But what Sen. Charles Schumer is touting as a “shot in the arm” for New York looks more like a sock in the face to the state’s taxpayers. The stimulus bills would temporarily offset Gov. Paterson’s planned cuts in Albany’s projected …
