RMAN4443 wrote:That $2500 tax credit didn't benefit the "average American", just the ones with college related expenses, the other things you mention, weren't they the "Shovel Ready" jobs that never materialized?
The number of average Americans going to college far exceed the number of average Americans who work in the oil, gas and coal industries...so net plus for Obama's tax break for college expenses
Trump's lifting of environmental regulations did nothing to raise the average oil, gas and coal worker's pay, but can increase the bottom line profits for those companies and boost the net worth for their stockholders. Not sure how many Americans own stocks in those companies, but the net increase in per share value directly attributable to deregulation is beyond my abilities and may require a historical evaluation by economists after a few years...
IMHO - Net loss to average Americans when you consider future clean-up costs for poisoned waterways and oil-stained public lands, for which we all will have to pay
Agreed that Obama's stimulus package didn't have immediate results...the rate of unemployment went up after it passed, which led to the perception that it was a failure...reality was that the systemic problems from two years of great recession had so much momentum that it should have been part of the message at passage that it would take some time to start working...all of the stimulus money took time to plan, organize, distribute and execute...this wasn't like instant mashed potatoes...
The perception of failure was particularly expressed, loudly so, by conservatives, who opposed the plan because it did not include large enough tax cuts and cut-backs in government spending: these were the "austerity" moves adopted by most conservative countries in Europe, none of whom's recovery from the Great Recession matched that of the US...
Long term, the plan succeeded in helping the US economy recover from the Great Recession...unemployment rates steadily declined, but incrementally and too slowly for many Americans, especially the critics on the right...a partial explanation for Trump's rise to the Presidency.