In response to the downturn there should have been, at the very least, a lowering of payroll and corporate taxes. Instead a bogus "stimulus" bill was passed, along with minor policies harmful to employment, combined with promises to pass sweeping measures that are major disincentives to hiring.

I was wondering about the minimal 0.1% rise in the unemployment rate as compared to the higher jumps for roughly equivalent numbers prior. Fortunately, someone had already done that work for me: 150,000 people dropped out of the job market, and another 200,000 were hired by the government. Without those, US unemployment would be up to 9.7%.

For the record, Obama's selling point for the stimulus was that with it we'd see 8.0% unemployment, but without it the rate would be 9.0%. So, not only are the current administration's economic policies failing, they are harming the economy more than their own projections of a "do nothing" policy. Hope and change!

Wow, as of right now the poll sits at 90%/10% - guess we are a pretty representative sample.

I wonder how Machiavellian Obama is? Back when the first stimulus was passed, quite a few commentators indicated that they didn't think it was enough. They also indicated that they thought Obama's predicted unemployment numbers were low. Now, we're finding out that indeed Obama's numbers were low, and indeed the stimulus was too little. Now, I don't think Obama could have passed a larger stimulus when he did - the political will was not there. Now, however, it might be. I wonder if the original stimulus effort was carried out with the idea that down the road another bill would be required? In favor of this you have the argument that Obama was willfully miss-stating unemployment projections and so on to make it appear that the first bill was all that would be required (so he could come back later and make the case that the situation had fundamentally changed from before, thus requiring a new effort). Against, I think the biggest argument is that Obama seems very determined to get his healthcare initiative passed, and the odds of both another stimulus bill, and another healthcare package getting passed at the same time are fairly slim.

Ce n'est pas une pipe. C'est une signature.

The governments job at a time of economic crisis is to ensure that the people who get laid off or are underemployed can get unemployment insurance payments.  The economy may just be permanently fucked as people are starting to realize that buying plastic trinkets doesn't actually make them happy.  In addition the doubling of the cost of foods, especially wheat and rice, and oil is causing people to re-evaluate their purchases and ideals.  Last year was an amazing year to be in the seed business, sales are way up.  For the first time in a couple decades there were more farmers than the year before.  The times of permanent economic growth are over, the best we can hope for now is for growth to flatline.

So repeal the waste of money stimulus package and put that money directly in the hands of the unemployed, undermployed and unemployable.