The CBO on the ARRA

To the best of my knowledge the CBO (Congressional Budget Office) is still considered one of the most non partisan analysts of the American Economy.

Among other things here’s what they conclude the result of Obama’s ARRA (American Recovery and Reinvestment Act) has been:

CBO estimates that in the first quarter of calendar year 2010, ARRA’s policies:
Raised the level of real (inflation-adjusted) gross domestic product (GDP) by between 1.7 percent and 4.2 percent,
Lowered the unemployment rate by between 0.7 percentage points and 1.5 percentage points,
Increased the number of people employed by between 1.2 million and 2.8 million, and
Increased the number of full-time-equivalent (FTE) jobs by 1.8 million to 4.1 million compared with what those amounts would have been otherwise. (Increases in FTE jobs include shifts from part-time to full-time work or overtime and are thus generally larger than increases in the number of employed workers.)
The effects of ARRA on output and employment are expected to increase further during calendar year 2010 but then diminish in 2011 and fade away by the end of 2012.

YUP. Its left a legacy of debt that will have to be retired by Americans but that should be easier with a functioning world wide economy than a ten year world wide depression.

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