by Zack Beauchamp
Jared Bernstein counters Frum:
We see GDP growth, which was almost unprecedentedly negative — down almost 9% in the quarter before the stimulus was passed — immediately falling less quickly, and turning positive by mid-2009. Similarly, we see the same pattern in job growth, which also reversed course soon after passage, and broke zero — net job growth — in March 2010. The addition and subtraction of census workers that year distort the picture somewhat, but they're not included in the private sector data, which presents a clearer view of what happened. The unemployment rate always lags growth by at least six months, but a few months after ARRA kicked in, it stopped growing.
Frum's reply:
Bernstein builds his argument on the assumption that I said the stimulus achieved nothing whatsoever. I didn’t. If I thought stimulus was useless, I wouldn’t complain about its design. There’s no such thing as a good cement boat. There can be such a thing as good fiscal stimulus. But that’s not what we got in 2009. I don’t entirely blame Bernstein for writing as he does. So many people have argued that the stimulus accomplished nothing that it must become almost a reflex in former administration aides to react against the criticism they have learned to expect. They knee kicks too fast for the ears to notice that something different is being said this time.
But I did say something different.
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