Commentary

Stimulus Numbers

Here is the stimulus as it stands by the numbers:

  • $1.1 trillionthe cost of the stimulus package
    The current spending plans, tax cuts, and expected interest on borrowed funds to pay for the stimulus are over a trillion dollars
  • $347 billionthe interest on the stimulus package if paid off by 2019
    The Congressional Budget Office issued a report today estimating that the government’s interest costs would increase by $0.7 billion in fiscal year 2009 and by a total of $347 billion over the 2009-2019 period.
  • $136 billionthe money spent on brand new/never before funded programs growing the size of government
    The stimulus bill creates and funds 36 new programs for everything from a “Waste Energy Recovery Incentive Program” to “Washington, D.C. National Mall Revitalization” to a “After School Feeding Program”
  • $10,000 – the amount each American family would have to pay to cover the stimulus bill
  • 1,588the number of pages in the stimulus bill
    “It will be of little avail to the people, that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood.” – James Madison, Federalist #62
  • Maybe 1%the reduction in unemployment projected from the stimulus bill
    Bloomberg recently reported that Senator Kent Conrad (D-ND), chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, projects the stimulus plan would reduce the unemployment rate by “maybe” 1 percent, or about half of the 3 million jobs Obama has said the plan would generate.