Ummm, that’s the whole idea, Marc (not sure why you act surprised). If the private sector were expanding, creating jobs, etc. there would be no need for that type of stimulus.
The real questions here are, were these projects beneficial (for instance in creating necessary infrastructure to fuel recovery)? Did these projects create jobs for those who needed them? Did this spending have multiplier effects?

Russ, As the ProJo explains (and I touch on) a lot of the money went to direct stimulus like the gov’t programs that don’t have to report the $s. I get that.
It’s the stimulus that went from one gov’t entity to another gov’t entity (fed->state->local) to plug budget gaps and, too often, to government’s own benefit (at various levels) all which resulted in the same levels of unemployment, negligible job growth (and most of that in gov’t) and a larger baseline from which to continue gov’t grown (25% of GDP vs. 19-20% prior to stimulus). In other words, they didn’t “let the crisis go to waste”.

The thinking behind the stimulus money was in part to preserve jobs that could have been lost driving unemployment even higher not to mention more stress being placed on businesses. Consumers without jobs would not be buying goods and services as they would while employed. Some economists were urging a much bigger initial stimulus from the federal government saying that half measures would not help. I think that we are dealing with that outcome now. I know of one local construction company who kept people employed mainly doing insulation installation for homeowners who qualified. The fact that money went to local governments meant that property tax payers were spared and services were not slashed. The idea behind the stimulus was to not have cities and towns add to the economic meltdown making things much worse. On a personal level I saw my borrowing limit severely limited by a major bank causing me to suspend plans to increase the size of my oyster seed purchase which will have a future impact including waiting to add a fulltime position.

The point of the stimulus was to hold off worse economic conditions until a recovery was underway. Like I wrote half measures did not do the job that some economists were suggesting was needed. Half measures brought mixed results. Had the amount been much higher and we saw direct results to infrastructure repair the benefits would be enjoyed by more people. The fact that children have a safe place to play does not distress me.

Dan quotes are below in italics:
“How do we measure the opportunities and jobs were foregone by the creation of the easily identifiable new job?”
Dan this “sentence”, if it can be described as one, makes no sense. So if you want to argue, you’ll have to write in complete sentences.
“When government taxes to build a park, we can see the children playing in it, but perhaps families could have better invested that money in their college educations?”
Or they could have gone to a casino and quadrupled their money or lost it all, or they could have spent it on manufacturing mud pies, or they could have … you fill it in. Anything could happen,could have happened or not happened. Your Never-Never land defies rational argument.
OldTimeLefty

It’s an alien thought process, Warrington, but you have to remember that OTL is operating within a different framework. Whereas we entrust individuals with identifying their own unique wants and needs, and bearing responsibility for their own successes and failures, OTL believes that he can walk into somebody’s life and through cold-hard statistics determine what is best for that individual. Any problem, in his mind, can be solved by him if he is given sufficient time to arrive at a top-down solution, and then resources to enact his will upon others. Go observe Frymaster over on RIFuture for more of this mentality – the man honestly thinks that he can efficiently dictate healthcare and education through top-down mandates for 300 million people. It goes beyond egotistical delusion – it’s madness.

Dan
Sorry I didn’t respond last night. Thanks to OldTime Lefty for having my back.
“Does it even somewhat concern you that there is no internal maximum in this stimulus theory?”
Sorry again. I don’t understand the question.
“Did the stimulus help the economy, hold it back, or have no effect?”
In my non answer I stated that i thought the the half measure of stimulus did not do what it was intended to do. So to answer you ..it helped the economy not get worse.
“How do you know?”
I don’t know. I read, listen and decide what I think is more probable. Like a weather forecast.
On the related matter you describe anecdotally – stimulus funds saving certain jobs, how do we measure what Bastiat referred to as the seen and the unseen?
Sorry I am not that familiar with Bastiat. Is seen and unseen similiar to the knowns and unknowns so cherished by a former Secretary of Defense?
“How do we measure the opportunities and jobs were foregone by the creation of the easily identifiable new job?”
I don’t understand the question.
“When government taxes to build a park, we can see the children playing in it, but perhaps families could have better invested that money in their college educations?”
I object. This a leading question.
Anymore questions you’ll have to get a subpoena. Dan I will not be at my desk until this evening so I cannot respond to your questions until then.

Phil – I apologize if my questions are unclear. I will try to rephrase them. 1)You are starting out with the assumption that proper stimulus spending by government can get us out of our recession. My problem with this assumption is that it is unfalsifiable, i.e., there is no way to determine whether any given level of spending was helpful or counterproductive after the fact. The example I gave was an attempted illustration of this reality – if government takes your (and Krugman’s) suggestion to double or quadruple stimulus spending and next year GDP grows 2%, how would you go about determining whether the stimulus helped the economy by bringing it up from 0% growth, or hurt the economy by bringing it down from 4% growth? What methodology would you use and what information would you require to make that kind of determination? If you can convincingly answer this question, then you are the foremost economic thinker in the world today and you deserve a Nobel Prize yourself. Of course, OTL thinks the question is “inane” and does not deserve an answer. We don’t know why he thinks this because he did not tell us. 2)The seen and the unseen refers to situations in which there are obvious and immediate benefits versus costs that are less clear and more difficult to measure. My park example was an attempted illustration, e.g., government takes $100 from each person in a town and builds a park with it. The benefits are very clear – a clean, safe place for children in the neighborhood to play, people walk there, bike ride, etc. The costs are more difficult, if not impossible to measure. That $100 will have a different and unique impact for every person in the town, and possibly for people outside the town… Read more »

I still don’t understand how you will determine whether the stimulus was successful or a failure, Phil. Again, how will you make sense of that hypothetical 2% GDP growth rate next year? What conclusions will you draw and what will you base those conclusions upon? Will 2% mean that we have not enough stimulus, just the right amount, or that we have spent too much already and it is doing damage? How will you know?
Presumably the public works you are advocating for with stimulus funds would be permanent. I think the question of what the hidden costs would be behind those immediate and obvious benefits is very relevant here.