The Obama Administration is getting on the road to reduce expectations for the stimulus bill that was just passed by the Congress and is soon to be signed into law:
WASHINGTON (Reuters)- President Barack Obama’s aides warned Americans on Sunday not to expect instant miracles from the $787 billion economic stimulus bill he will sign this week, but said it would help eventually.
Obama is due to sign the bill passed last week by Congress in Denver on Tuesday. It was the first major legislative victory of his young presidency, which could rise or fall with its success or failure.
“There will be signs of activity very quickly,” David Axelrod, the White House senior adviser, said on “Fox News Sunday.” “But it’s going to take time for that to show up in the statistics. The president has said it’s likely to get worse before it gets better.”
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs used similar language on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”
“I don’t think there’s any doubt that we’ve seen this economy has gotten worse just in the last few months. The acceleration in job loss probably means that this economy is going to get worse before it gets better,” he said.
The current recession started back in 2007 (although, arguably, it took a definite turn for the worse in September, 2008), at least that’s what the NBER, the institution that keeps track of such things, has to say. If you believe at all in judging by previous experience, that means that with or without the stimulus package the recession would have been likely to end towards the end of this year. That was always the silver lining for the Obama Administration—he was likely to get credit for the turnaround whatever happened.
