Obama now owns the Economy.

FDR wouldn't recognize it. Since President Barack Obama's and Nancy Pelosi's great "stimulus"—the Economic Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009—was signed by Obama on Feb. 19, total investment in public works construction in the United States has gone down! Seems Obama and the White House are so focussed on declaring the "Recovery" part, they've skipped the "Reinvestment."

Spending on public construction — bridges, airports, roads, transit, dams schools, hospitals, etc. built by Federal, state, and local governments — actually fell in May, and has fallen for the entire three-month period March-May since Obama signed Pelosi's "stimulus." And for total construction investment, ditto: down 0.9% in May, and down 0.4% for the three months of "stimulus." Public construction has fallen for eight consecutive months, including down 0.6% in May, with the biggest drops in highway, street, airport, power plant construction.

Any Democrat who supports any Obama policy will be defeated in 2010, if we still have an economy left.

Glenn, I would suggest that your issue is one of ideology and nothing more sophisticated than that.

These current conditions have taken over 15 years to develop. Low interest rates as a result of the tech bubble deflating was the beginning. Lever up was the mind set for the creation of the next bubble.

Any thoughtful and rational individual can see that this will not unwind in six months or even 1 year.

Financial, retail and manufacturing are still suffering the effects of acquiring too much debt, over expanding and thus, are still in the process of de-levering.

The same could be said for the consumer. Too many have lived the mantra of "I can make the monthly minimum on my credit card" so all is good. The homes that they live in have been used as ATM machines. That piggy bank is not available any more.

The GDP has lost over 2 trillion dollars as a result of the this debacle. It would have been irresponsible for the government to have not stepped in and try to fill the void. This conclusion has been reached by thoughtful conservative economists such as Mark Zandi who is Chief Economist and co-founder @ Moody's as well as a host of others.

Obama does own the economy who would think otherwise? After all he is trying his best to fix this mess that has taken many years to lever up.

I think that I'll give the president more that 200 days to fix the problem. Perhaps most thoughtful and rational people will as well.

Both of President Barack Obama's big "behavioral economics" experiments were launched at the same time: the Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009—known as "the stimulus bill" signed on Feb. 17; and the mortgage foreclosure relief program announced by Obama on Feb. 19. Both incompetent policies have already flopped; along with Obama's policy of starving the state governments of any protection, they are bankrupting the U.S. economy.

With the announcement of June jobs figures by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) today, the Obama "stimulus" act is a very unstimulating failure. Through June, 2.4 million jobs have officially been lost, net, in the U.S. economy since Obama signed his "stimulus," and 3 million lost since he took office. The 467,000 reported net loss in June was worse than in May, and "much worse than expected" by pundits who were buying the White House/Federal Reserve "green shoots of recovery" propaganda.

Another 79,000 construction jobs disappeared in June, making -360,000 since the "stimulus" was signed and was supposedly going to create new construction/public works jobs; public and private construction investment has actually dropped since then. Another 136,000 were eliminated in manufacturing, making -610,000 jobs under behavioral Obamanomics. And the auto sector, Obama's most targetted industry, lost 27,000 in June, making -101,000 in four months. The total real unemployment figure—including forced part-time and discouraged labor force dropouts—rose in June to at least 26 million, and if long-term discouraged workers are counted, 30.5 million. Average weekly wages fell for the second month, and second-quarter wages fell from first quarter. New unemployment claims continued unabated in the latest week, 614,000.

The Obama mortgage-relief program, based on behaviorist "nudges" to lenders and borrowers to "incentivize" refinancing, is a flop. Fannie Mae has estimated that 20,000 mortgage holders had refinanced under the program by late June (during that same period about 1.3 million households got foreclosure notices). Back on Feb. 19 Obama said it "could help 4-5 million borrowers." So, today, HUD Secretary Shaun Donavan expanded the program to homeowners who are up to 25% underwater (their home is worth 25% less than their mortgage loan), a move he publicly rejected two months ago. This won't work either, but it will expand Fannie Mae's and Freddie Mac's financial losses.

Glenn, I would suggest that your issue is one of ideology and really nothing more sophisticated than that.

This economy is a good example of things reaching their logical conclusion.. if you reward myopic and greedy optimizations, you will ultimately experience the results of your actions.

A theory with zero predictive value is a religion.

We are at a philosophical impasse, Glenn happy 4th and best wishes...

What matters most for economic growth is the change in the stimulus payout, and the biggest increases in the stimulus payout are occurring right now. The payout was near $10 billion in the first quarter; it is expected to rise to $80 billion in the current quarter, remain effectively unchanged through this time next year, and then fade quickly after that. The impact on the economy is not immediate, as measured by real GDP, employment and unemployment. The extra take-home pay that workers saw after payroll taxes fell, for example, won't be spent for several months. If the 2001 and 2008 rebate checks are a guide, it will take through the end of this year for workers to spend about two-thirds of their extra cash.

Accounting for these lags, the maximum contribution from the stimulus should occur in the second and third quarters of this year, when it will add more than 3 percentage points to annualized real GDP. This suggests that if policymakers had not been able to pass a stimulus plan, real GDP would have declined nearly 6% in the second quarter and by more than 3% in the third. With the stimulus, GDP is expected to fall close to 3% in the second quarter and rise a bit in the third. The contribution of stimulus to growth fades quickly, adding just over 1 percentage point to annualized growth in the fourth quarter of this year and the first quarter of 2010 and actually detracting from GDP growth by the second half of 2010. The impact on jobs and unemployment is also significant, as the stimulus results in approximately 2.5 million more jobs by the end of 2010 than would have been the case without it, and leaves the unemployment rate almost 2 percentage points lower.

It is important to note that estimating the economic impacts of the fiscal stimulus is not an accounting exercise but rather an econometric one. It is not feasible to identify and count each job that results from the stimulus; economic impacts are estimated using a macroeconomics model, a statistical representation of the U.S. economy based on historical relationships. The economic impact of the stimulus is determined by simulating such a model with fiscal stimulus and then without it. The results presented here are based on the Moody's Economy.com model, which is used regularly for forecasting, scenario building and policy analysis. The Obama administration has derived its estimates of the stimulus' impact using a similar approach.

Policymakers should thus be quietly preparing another round of fiscal stimulus for early 2010. Effective additional stimulus might include more help to state and local governments, whose budget problems will probably be even worse next year; an expanded housing tax credit to address the foreclosure crisis; and a payroll tax holiday. Delaying increases in marginal personal tax rates, now legislated to occur at the start of 2011, would likely also make sense. Higher-income households may begin to rein in spending in 2010 as they prepare for the higher tax rates.

It is premature for policymakers to publicly consider all this now; the current stimulus should be given a chance, and the nation's long-term fiscal challenges are daunting. But if the Great Recession has taught us anything, it is to prepare for the worst.

The irony of this is that a percentage of the stimulus's effects will be negated by the short sighted pullback in state spending, especially here in Minnesota.

It is hard to put people to work when at the same time you have short sighted governors laying workers off. An example of two different ideologies rubbing against one another.