What do you think of Obama's plan for creating more jobs?
What do you think of Obama's plan for creating more jobs?
I don't think it's enough, but I think it will be better for the economy than the alternative of doing nothing.
Quote:
Could President Obama's jobs plan work?
Independent experts answered Friday with a qualified yes.
The American Jobs Act would create jobs and help keep a struggling economy moving forward, several economists said. But they cautioned it wouldn't shift the nation's business gears into overdrive, and it offers modest benefits, given the head winds the economy faces.
As only a short-term stimulus plan, the American Jobs Act wouldn't address structural and external problems, such as the moribund housing sector and financial turmoil in Europe. And because the proposals' design is transitory, it makes them difficult to compare against broad economic plans.
Macroeconomic Advisers, a leading economic-forecast group, projected that Obama's plan "would give a significant boost to (the gross domestic product) and employment over the near term."
There's the rub. The plan aims to deliver only a short-term fix designed to keep the economy from falling back into recession.
Then there's the price tag, $447 billion. That would add to the sum that must be covered by a congressional deficit-reduction committee aiming to cut $1.5 trillion from federal spending over 10 years. Obama's plan counts on this panel to find almost $2 trillion in cuts.
Macroeconomic Advisers predicted the plan would raise GDP — the annual sum of all goods and services produced in the country — by 1.3 percentage points through 2012, resulting in 1.3 million more people employed. It estimated the plan would add 0.2 percentage point to growth in 2013.
More here:
Nation & World | Obama's job plan will help, economists say | Seattle Times Newspaper
Obama's speech here:
Full text: President Obama's jobs address - chicagotribune.com
