Economic Stimulus Act

On November 4, 2008, candidate Barack Obama was elected for the first term of his presidency. The following February, The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009—or the ARRA—was signed into effect by congress, and made into law by President Obama on February 17, 2009. This stimulus package was originally proposed to be 816 billion dollars, but was eventually raised to be 840 billion dollars in 2012. The purpose of this bill was to inspire confidence in the American people that the economy would be up and running again. The ARRA was intended to give money back to small businesses as well as the American families who ran and worked at these businesses. This varies from TARP, or the Troubled Asset Recovery Program, which was a bill that was aimed at bailing out banks in October 2008. TARP worked to allow banks in danger to participate in reverse auction, in order to sell their assets.

Max: Hi I’m Max Lessins. This is Crash Course for economics and today we’ll be discussing the Great Recession, focusing on the fiscal and monetary policies used to recover from the 2008 economic meltdown.

Baker III, J. A. (2009). Economic Policy: Recommendations for the Next Administration. Institute for Public Policy. Retrieved from http://bakerinstitute.org/publications/TEPP-pub ObamaTransitionDiamondCountryman-011209.pdf

Francisco, F. R. (2004, February 06). U.S. Monetary Policy: An Introduction. Retrieved from How does monetary policy affect the U.S. economy?: http

During 1997-2006, house prices rose 85 percent. This led to an irresponsible consumer spending spree. Millions of people bought a house that they could not afford. Government regulatory agencies and mortgage lenders became less strict with credit restrictions so that people could buy homes without making any down payment. In 2007, however, the home values and sales began to decline. Due to the loss of trillions of dollars in home value, a record number of borrowers defaulted on their mortgage payments. America was put into a recession in 2008 because of the contraction of corporate spending and consumer purchased. The prices of consumer goods spiked, while employment declined. On October 3, 2008, former President Bush signed the Troubled Asset Relief Program; however, the bill did not restore the economy as a whole. By June 2009, America's economic recovery was at its weakest since the end of the Second World War. I chose this event in history because it had a major effect on America’s economy and changed the course of history. Historians need to study the Great Recession because America should learn from their mistakes. The Great Recession was due to different factors; however, if the regulations on credit restrictions were not tampered with, then the severity of the recession could have been

The current state of the U.S. macro economy is made up of a plethora of highly involved processes. I am going to attempt to explain some simple terms and concepts focused on international trade and foreign exchange rates.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, otherwise known as the Stimulus Bill, was one of the first major pieces of legislation passed by the new Democratic Congress in 2009 and signed by newly inaugurated President Barack Obama. The legislation was an attempt to take the United States economy out of a major recession through federal spending. The motivation for this bill was the collapse of the housing market bubble and the mortgage crisis. A result of these problems was the decline of consumer and corporate credit, causing monetary liquidity in the economy. Obama argued that the economy needed a “jump-start” to get moving again; that being the stimulus of 2009. Drafts for the bill called for as little as $275 billion in spending,

The leading aim was for a sense of motivation in the time of the economic decline and help the U.S. economy. While involving the tax release and expanding on employment, it also served many purposed that are non-economic. This included matters that were directed towards more long term plans. The Economic Stimulus Act of 2008 involved refunds of taxes, yet the government had more action that was significantly bigger.

In Chapter 11, we learned that economists refer to recessions as periods where there is a declining real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for at least six consecutive months. The unemployed workers were experiencing cyclical unemployment because of the fluctuating GDP. Since the government spending exceeded the received revenues they were operating with a budget deficit causing the national debt increase. Chapter 15 informed us of the tax increase imposed by President Clinton that later eliminated the budget deficit during his administration. Although there were many pros and cons with NAFTA it created a comparative advantage that generated more international trading between the U.S., Canada, and Mexico that caused expansion in these

The U.S has gone through a major economic struggle and is still fighting for stability. It is, also, undergoing a recession which occurs whenever gross domestic product and the total output of goods and services fall for two consecutive quarters. The 789 billion dollars stimulus package has not created many private sector jobs and the hundreds of billions in TARP money squandered by Treasury Secretary Geithner to bail out General Motors, Chrysler, Bank of America, AIG and Citigroup has not reached most business and working Americans (Peter Morici). Though the unemployment rate has decreased, it is because many Americans have stopped looking for jobs and are no longer in the unemployment rates. This, of course, does not show any improvement in the U.S economy. Most of the taxpayers’ money is being used to support illegal families with American-born babies; while, many illegal Mexicans are taking jobs from citizens who are desperately searching for jobs. With this unattended problem the country’s economical repair will be prolonged.

Fiscal policy: Given the breadth and depth of this recession, it was clear that the Treasury and the entire Obama administration had to take bold actions. In fact, right at the beginning, they were committed to a fiscal stimulus policy package which would be “substantial” enough to pull the economy out of the recession. The final stimulus package signed into law in 2009, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, was totaled $787 billion including about one-third tax cuts and one-third aid for states and the unemployed. Of the rest, labor health and education investment got 8%, and infrastructure investment got about 7%. It also included a large amount of government money to

Observers of failed economic stimulus packages have developed a fear that these large sums of funding will be mismanaged and therefore will not be able to stimulate the economy (“History of Government Spending,” n.d.).

The economic meaning of a recession is that the gross Domestic Product (GDP) has declined for two or more consecutive quarters. Unemployment rises, housing falls, stocks fall and the economy is in trouble. Whenever the government sees that the economy is entering a recession it is important for it to act. The U.S acted in two ways during the Great recession of 2008 through fiscal and monetary policies. Renaud Fillieule identifies that “ Monetary and credit expansions have been the main tools used by the U.S. government and central bank to try and recover economically from the Great Recession of 2008” (Fillieule r, Pg. 99 2016). These Keynesian policies are debatable among economist, none the less they were implemented and put the U.S on the road to recovery.

To help gain support for the bill, President Obama made statements about how the bill would help the economy.

The policy response from the G.W. Bush is that there are three main parts to the fiscal policy stimulus. An individual tax that the Internal Revenue service sent out started in mid-2008. There were two business provisions that encourage investment during 2008 by increasing limits on expensing investment costs and accelerate depreciation of qualifying investments. The specific steps taken in early 2008 were the home owner purchases rebate and tax cuts.