Truthiness and Republican Economics

I just heard a Republican spokesperson seeking to cast doubt on government stimulus programs by saying that there had been two stimulus packages and the economy is still in bad shape. One would hope that the Republicans would understand enough about the world to recognize that:

• The economy could also be in worse shape now had we not had the earlier stimulus.
• The Democrats had wanted larger stimulus packages but the Republicans in Congress forced less than the desired packages.
• The worst economic crisis in a couple of generations was never likely to be resolved in a few years, and is evolving rather well.
• There are a lot of things that influence the economy, such as public mistrust caused by the Congressional inability to agree on economic policy or anything else, the price of oil, the continuing problem of underwater housing values and the weakness of European demand for U.S. exports; the stimulus package can only have a partial effect.
• The calculation of needed economic stimulus and the prediction of the impact of such stimulus is at best a process of approximations.
• The stock market is actually doing pretty well since its low in 2008, indicating a fair amount of investor confidence that the economy is on the right track.

See my last comment on the truthiness of opinion. Of course, the claim that stimulus packages don't work may be something that the Republicans don't believe but think will be effective in gaining votes. Lets make sure that is not true.

The real problem is of course that without more stimulus, the economy is likely to stall and we are likely to have more unemployment and more underemployment than we might otherwise have. That would also mean that the government's income from future taxes would be less, leading to more need for future stimulus, more government debt, and more economic uncertainty.