Talk:American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009/Archive 4

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Archive 1 Archive 2 Archive 3 Archive 4

Controversy

I think it lack a section about the controversy surrounding it. This act started the tea party and was a main point in republican mid term election —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.10.145.122 (talk) 21:02, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

Removed reqdiagram

There seem to be plenty of pictures in the article, and I cannot find when the reqdiagram was added relative to when the pictures were added. Reqdiagram removed. Egmason (talk) 08:48, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Separation of State and Synagogue principle

I have checked New York Area grant recepients and a lot of them are jewish religious schools that got the Stimulus money to buy some kitchen equipment and help with school lunches. Any chance this article will discuss why Americans have to fund this outrage? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.246.10.248 (talk) 03:35, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

If you're going to argue that feeding children is an "outrage," at least have the courage to register and log in. DOR (HK) (talk) 01:13, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

Leading section

The entire second paragraph of the lead (which comprises a significant percentage of it) appears to be nothing more than a discussion of the efficacy of the bill. It speculates as to whether or not it, as opposed to monetary policies, would have been better ["The modern consensus (a blend of thinking from New Keynesian and New Neo-classical theory in economics) favors monetary over fiscal policy like the fiscal stimulus"]. This material seems to belong in some type of "critique" section, not the lead. I think it is appropriate to mention in the lead that there exists a controversy (and perhaps include a very basic characterization of the controversy), but introducing economic concepts like liquidity trap and crowding out do not seem appropriate to the leading section of this article. I think this paragraph should be shortened and placed after the third paragraph, which includes a brief list of the provisions of the act. If no objections or comments are made within a day or two, I will boldly make the changes myself. JEN9841 (talk) 22:53, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

In the formative stages of this article, it was shaped by prolific POV pushers who have since been banned from the project for other edits; their work remains strewn throughout the project. I'm not quite sure what is meant by our phrase "use up savings" and I find it ironic that our article on crowding out notes in the second sentence that to avoid crowding out, you should raise taxes — meaning that crowding out is more of an argument against extending tax cuts given that we initiated a stimulus than it is against initiating stimulus (at a time when the tax cuts were due to expire). But I agree that this isn't a dissertation on macroeconomics but an article about this act. Indeed, both those who thought the stimulus should have been twice as big and those who want to remove government from any economic influence found some fault with this compromise, but to the small degree we note that, it should be balanced to include both arguments, it should be linked to the actual conditions at play at the time and not up in some academic rhetorical theory, and it should not be in the lead. Go for it. Abrazame (talk) 03:59, 27 April 2011 (UTC)
I wrote much of the original section you're talking about. I think it's important to explain why the stimulus was passed and the basic economic reasoning used by its supporters and opponents. The article (outside of the lead) would be better if it spent more time explaining these issues instead of discussing how many economists signed public letters for or against the stimulus. If you want to simplify the section, that's fine, but I think it would be weird not to have any explanation of the rationale for the bill or its controversy in the lead. I was trying to convey a few, key points: 1) This kind of fiscal policy is rare because monetary policy is usually preferred but this recession demanded more (because of the liquidity trap and zirp), 2) Keynesian economics says you can replace a drop in private spending with an increase in public spending to save jobs and stop further economic decline, 3) Critics of Keynesianism say stimulus spending will not increase overall spending in an economy because the government will have to borrow funds that would have gone to fund private spending. This shouldn't be in a "critique" section, because only the last part is a critique. The first section, on monetary policy, is an explanation of why it was thought extraordinary measures were thought to be needed.
Abrazame, what POV did you think the section was pushing? It includes both the reasoning behind the bill's support and opposition. And what you have in place of "academic rhetorical theory"? We have to explain viewpoints on the bill somehow, and if we don't explain the economic theories then we'd probably just be left with politicians' talking points.--Bkwillwm (talk) 04:43, 27 April 2011 (UTC)
Mentioning that the bill is Keynesian is obviously important, however, my main issue is the depth and extent to which the lead concerns itself with the efficacy/necessity/justification of the bill. By explaining that problems in credit markets would have rendered monetary policy ineffective is to justify the bill. Providing a justificaiton for a political act is to recognize that there is a debate over it (doesn't everything seem to be up for debate in politics?). This is not appropriate for a leading section. It doesn't seem reasonable to have this whole discussion before we actually get to what the bill provides for. How about something like this for the lead:
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, abbreviated ARRA (Pub. L.Tooltip Public Law (United States) 111–5 (text) (PDF)) and commonly referred to as the Stimulus or The Recovery Act, is an economic stimulus package enacted by the 111th United States Congress in February 2009.
The stimulus was intended to create jobs and promote investment and consumer spending during the late-2000s recession. The rationale for the stimulus comes out of the Keynesian economic tradition which argues that, during recessions, the government ought to replace a drop in private spending with an increase in public spending to save jobs and stop further economic decline. As such, the measures are nominally worth $787 billion. The Act includes federal tax incentives, expansion of unemployment benefits and other social welfare provisions, and domestic spending in education, health care, and infrastructure, including the energy sector. The Act also includes numerous non-economic recovery related items that were either part of longer-term plans (e.g. a study of the effectiveness of medical treatments) or desired by Congress (e.g. a limitation on executive compensation in federally aided banks added by Senator Dodd and Rep. Frank).
No Republicans in the House and only three Republican Senators voted for the bill.[1][2][3] The bill was signed into law on February 17 by President Barack Obama at an economic forum he was hosting in Denver, Colorado.[4]
As of the end of August 2009, 19% of the stimulus had been outlaid or gone to American taxpayers or businesses in the form of tax incentives.[5]
I would be perfectly happy to include a discussion of why monetary policy would not have worked and why fiscal stimulus was needed. I just don't think it is appropriate in the lead. Leads exist in order to provide a lay overview of a topic to people unfamiliar with it. Readers who don't know what the stimulus act is or does will not know what output gap, liquidity trap, and crowding out are. Most won't even understand the distinction between monetary and fiscal policy. Thus, I inserted the simpler language you (Bkwillwm) included in your response. In addition to my changes, we could add a section ot the article, perhaps the top section (called "Monetary vs. fiscal policy" or "Monetary and fiscal policy"?)
At risk of repeating myself let me summarize by mentioning my two main concerns which are I believe are satisfactorily addressed in my proposed lead:
1) It is not appropriate to justify the bill in the lead (describing what the bill is is, however, which is why mentioning Keynesianism is important and allowable)
2) We need to keep the lead accesible; thus, we reduce it to ideas that you don't need to take a collegiate introductory course in macroeconomics to understand
If people are still interested, they will be directed to a section that addresses your concerns, which characterize the differences between monetary and fiscal policy and when they are/aren't useful/effective. This way, we could actually delve deeper into the topic instead of having a cursory discussion of it that most people won't understand anyway. JEN9841 (talk) 07:32, 28 April 2011 (UTC)
I'm OK with the text you proposed for the lead. I'll try to work what I did into the body of the article.--Bkwillwm (talk) 22:16, 1 May 2011 (UTC)
I think the last 3 sentences (the last 2 paragraphs) either don't belong in the Leading Section or should be moved:
•"No Republicans in the House and only three Republican Senators voted for the bill." - This is already stated in the Legislative History section. I don't believe this belongs in the Leading Section and recommend deleting it.
•"The bill was signed into law on February 17 by President Barack Obama at an economic forum he was hosting in Denver, Colorado.[4]" - I recommend moving this to the end of the first paragraph and drop the fact that it was signed in Denver since I don't think this is relevant detail for the Lead Section. That detail could be moved to a later section if deemed important.
•"As of the end of August 2009, 19% of the stimulus had been outlaid or gone to American taxpayers or businesses in the form of tax incentives.[5]" - I don't think this detail belongs in the Lead section. These types of details are in the "Developments under the Act" and this could be moved there. Another reason I don't think this should be in the Lead Section is that this is a single data point that is time-based during the implementation of the Act - I think the Lead Section should be more or less stable and not need to be continually updated to note the progress of implementation.
The lead section also needs to be cleaned up for some grammar and to consistently use past tense.
With regards to the statement "As such, the measures are nominally worth $787 billion", is this economic terminology? The word "worth" does not seem appropriate since that indicates the end-value of the Act from my layman's perspective. I suggest replacing with a sentence like this: "The approximate cost of the economic stimulus package was estimated at $787 Billion at the time of passage."
I think it would be appropriate and important to mention that the Act was controversial and contentious during debate and years after it passed/enacted in the Lead Section, but at a high-level--Unforgettable fan (talk) 01:58, 10 July 2011 (UTC)
Proposed revision to the lead section:
"The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, abbreviated ARRA (Pub.L. 111-5) and commonly referred to as the Stimulus or The Recovery Act, was an economic fiscal stimulus package enacted by the 111th United States Congress and signed into law on February 17, 2009 by President Barack Obama.
For the purpose to bolster the U.S. economy during the late-2000s recession, ARRA was primarily intended to save and create jobs, but also to provide temporary relief programs for those most impacted by the recession and invest in infrastructure, education, health, and energy. The approximate cost of the economic stimulus package was estimated to be $787 Billion at the time of passage, which was considered to be very large. To meet the primary objectives, the Act included direct spending in infrastructure, education, health, and energy, federal tax incentives, and expansion of unemployment benefits and other social welfare provisions. The Act also included many items not directly related to economic recovery such as long-term projects (e.g. a study of the effectiveness of medical treatments) and other items specifically included by Congress (e.g. a limitation on executive compensation in federally aided banks added by Senator Dodd and Representative Frank).
The rationale for ARRA was from Keynesian macroeconomic theory which argues that, during recessions, the government should offset the decrease in private spending with an increase in public spending in order to save jobs and stop further economic decline.
ARRA was very controversial and contentious during the legislative process because of differing viewpoints on macroeconomic theory, differing political ideologies, the sense of urgency to respond to the recession, and the significant cost of the bill. The controversy continued years after it became law as the actual effectiveness of the fiscal stimulus was debated and as the cost of it contributed to the U.S. national debt which ballooned during this time period and became a significant issue."
Feedback? --Unforgettable fan (talk) 00:59, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Recommendations by economists.......from obamaftw.com???

The last line of this section states: "The general consensus among non-partisan economic sources including IHS Global Insight, Moody's.com, Economy.com and Macroeconomic Advisers is that the economy would have been far worse without the ARRA.[60]"

The citation for this statement comes from Obamaftw.com? What about IHS global or Moody's.com? Net neutrality for the win! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.107.177.167 (talk) 02:54, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

I added what I believe were the original sources. But left the above source in. Thanks for the information. Dave Dial (talk) 03:22, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

Consisted of 1/3 tax cuts. It wasn't Keynesian, it was Chicago School

For a program to be Keynesian economics it needed no tax cuts. This was just another form of failed neoliberalism from the Chicago school of economics.--JLAmidei (talk) 07:16, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Date error?

The first sentence of this article states that ARRA was "signed into law on February 17, 2009." However, according to Recovery.gov, Congress enacted the law on February 17 and the President signed it four days later, which would have been February 21. Does anyone see any reason why this sentence shouldn't be revised to correct the inaccuracy? Zandar555 (talk) 21:47, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Example of liberal tendencies in wikipedia

This article is an example of how wikipedia is strongly liberally biased; it admits how basically no Republicans voted for it, but later since nothing about it's opposition or criticism in such a section or elsewhere. Daniel Christensen (talk) 20:27, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

WP:SOFIXIT. If you believe the article does not have a neutral point of view, you are welcome to fix it. It's misleading to suggest that wikipedia, which encompasses millions of articles across thousands of topics, is liberally biased based on the content of this article alone.Smallman12q (talk) 22:12, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

=== where is the criticism section???? I guess we are going to pretend this isn't controversial and no one criticises it?

If you are so inclined, you could make one, but make sure to have proper factual references. --Robert Wm "Ruedii" (talk) 06:49, 13 November 2011 (UTC)
Actually on further review of the article in my recent fix of a section, I find a VERY strong need for a criticism section. By separating the raw historical facts, the supporting arguments, the criticism and the political criticism and controversies. From what I can tell this separation might actually assist [WP:NPOV] not hurt it. The current format does not provide for the ability to easily present anything that isn't neutral in nature without disrupting the neutral point of view. I am actually inclined to agree that the article needs to be flagged for total reorganization. — Preceding unsigned comment added by RuediiX (talk • contribs) 02:28, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

potentially biased graph Image without verification of information.

Unemployment Rate Graph

This is a little biased in failure to present up to date estimates of unemployment without the stimulus act.

Additionally there is no reference as to which unemployment data was used, and the chart modifications are self-cited. "General Knowledge" is not an acceptable source, as there are several methods to measure unemployment, which can vary by several percent.

I looked up the source report (linked from the image's history page) and found the following line, further making my point:
"Forecasts of the unemployment rate without the recovery plan vary substantially. Some private forecasters anticipate unemployment rates as high as 11% in the absence of action."
This further marks the bias.
I initially found this graph by the very fact that it was linked in a highly biased YouTube video. It has also been featured several times on many Right wing Sights. I feel this greatly damages the reputability of Wikipedia as an unbiased source.
Since there have been no objections I have decided to remove it from the page, but let the image remain until further review. If someone wants to go through and implement my suggestion of updating with a range using numbers from the date of passing, and placing those in a range, with colored lines for 3 month unemployment average (not monthly unemployment) and the estimate given, based on using the same curve offset. If someone could do this, I would encourage placing the graph back in.--Robert Wm "Ruedii" (talk) 02:00, 31 March 2012 (UTC)
OK, I've made some progress on figuring out what needs to be done to delete it from the page. I'm not sure if it's worth it. An entire series of paragraphs need their data corrected. However, those paragraphs need to be updated further for newer data anyways. — Preceding unsigned comment added by RuediiX (talk • contribs) 02:33, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Scientific research

The article current says $7.6 billion with a {{fact}} tag. this says "it contained more than $52 billion for research and development .., of which $15 billion was expressly for scientific research at the NIH, the National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy's Office of Science". this says it "contained $21.5 billion for scientific research, the purchase of capital equipment and science-related construction projects." and this also says $21b. help!? Is 'Defence' (research) the difference? I am wanting a nice, but accurate, big number for STAR METRICS. John Vandenberg (chat) 10:56, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

Keynesian?

The assertion, "The rationale for ARRA was from Keynesian macroeconomic theory", is, IMHO, fallacious. The main focus of the Act was not "liberal" "Keynesian", but Republican/Libertarian "Friedmanism".

The majority of the Act's "stimuli" were tax cuts and support for the victimized local and state governments. Only a small portion of the Act's accelerated infrastructure investments could be construed as "Keynesian", and only by a stretch.

Dr Krugman's criticism of ARRA was that it's Spending aspect was so meager that it had no Keynesian effect. The Act offered a package of about $0.75T when at least an Investment of $1.5T in JOBS was/is required.

We needed - and still do - Keynesian, but got only Friedmanism instead.

Tgsherer (talk) 11:09, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

Protection? Importance?

I'm not ready to send this to WP:RFPP again, but the article's continued prominence (see here for where it was cited) keeps me worried about vandalism. By the way, based on Internet searches and common sense, I am raising the "importance" scale above. Bearian (talk) 16:19, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

"Registration"

People at anonymous IP addresses keep adding meaningless references to the article regarding "registration," along with some dollar figures.

The only reference I find in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 is in section 1512 of the Act. That section, called the "Jobs Accountability Act," requires that a "recipient" who is awarded certain subcontracts or subgrants and who is required to report certain information under subsection (c) of section 1512 is also required to "register" with something called the "Central Contractor Registration" database, or to complete certain other registration requirements. See section 1512(h) of the Act.

Perhaps our anonymous editors are thinking about that registration process.

However, merely creating a subheading called "Registration" in the article and adding some dollar figures is adding meaningless nonsense, without explaining in the article what you are talking about.

Use reliable sources, cite those sources, and explain what you are trying to say. Don't just add unsourced, meaningless verbiage to the article. Famspear (talk) 17:34, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

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Hello

What are good Kerolesgozif (talk) 21:15, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

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Allegations of Scandal

In light of breitbart.com highlighting the ARRA as #1 on a list of 18 scandals during the Obama administration, should this article better highlight allegations of graft and waste and any responses thereto?

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/01/02/18-major-scandals-obama-presidency/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.90.168.157 (talk) 15:04, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

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  1. ^ "US Congress passes stimulus plan". BBC. February 14, 2009. Retrieved February 17, 2009.
  2. ^ "Dems power stimulus bill through Congress". Associated Press. February 14, 2009.
  3. ^ Roll call vote 64, via Senate.gov
  4. ^ Sahadi, Jeanne (February 17, 2009). "Stimulus: Now for the hard part". CNN.com.
  5. ^ Gross, Daniel (12 October 2009). "The $800 Billion Deception: Conservatives claim the stimulus has already failed. But it has barely started". Slate.
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