The Stimulus Package, or the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, is a way to help the economy by putting money into the people’s hand and let them spend on whatever they want. But is it really a good and necessary plan and is this the right time for it? Do the American people like it? The answer is definitely no, this plan is at the wrong time, wrong place, and it will not work. Why? The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 might create temporary jobs while cut many more jobs, or perhaps even create a trade war with other countries, and spend the money on the wrong things.
Sure enough, there are many arguments about what should be done with the economy, and it’s fair to say that our economy is going down the toilet. There are many factors and reasons that contributed to this. Such as the Iraqi War and the jobs that have been cut by large companies. Is there any way to fix this? Of course there is. Some people believe that we can put money into people’s hands to let them buy things will help; others believe that this plan will create millions of jobs to help boost the economy. However, they are all missing the big picture. The fact is that there is a limit to how much the plan will actually help our economy.
First of all, the most obvious mistake in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 is the $36 billion in increased unemployment insurance benefits. This will cause more workers to quit their jobs and look for a new one and others will be a little more reluctant to take a new job when they are offered it, and during this time period, unemployment rates will raise, fast. Also, most of the new jobs are for people who are currently employed, and moving the money from where we are spending it now to where we want to spend it will make these people switch jobs, and it will take some time, this is called unemployment. The most important of all, there is no mention of special projects that are attached to the bill, like FDR had in his New Deals.
Secondly, the stimulus plan has a Buy American clause, which forces people to buy things that are U.S. made, therefore, possibly triggering a trade war with exporting countries like China and Japan. This will further hurt other countries and causing them to have a recession; Japan, for example, had their exported goods drop by 46% this January compared to last year. Besides those facts, they are forcing people to spend money on what they want them to. Let’s say a TV, maybe someone wants to buy a new HDTV, but sorry, they only give you money if you’re going to spend it on converter boxes, which of course make the converter box manufactures happy, and I’m sure that those are the jobs that we have to worry about.
There are also reports that say $170 billion will go to state and local governments, $87 billion will go to Medicaid, $80 billion will go to education, and $3 billion will go to Medicaid regulatory initiatives. Now, even the Democrats can’t argue that this is some new ‘stimulus’ plan or idea. Putting money into local and state governments has always been a strong priority to the people and the government. This $170 billion isn’t a new idea that we need right now.
Of course, we have to do something about the bad economy right now, but it surely isn’t the Stimulus Plan, which cuts jobs by raising $36 billion in unemployment insurance benefits, and forcing people who are currently employed to switch jobs, and making people who are looking for jobs more reluctant to find a new one. Also, the buy American clause will cause other countries to go into a recession, therefore making this recession, or depression more globally. The forcing of people to buy something that the government wants the people to buy idea is a real bad one, is there any more freedom in this? This isn’t boosting or stimulating the economy; it is more of an economic monopoly. So in the end, the Stimulus Plan really isn’t going to work. It’s just going to cause more trouble and more people will lose their jobs.