2012 senior class photos
2012 West Carrollton graduation
Home of the Week
Ellen Belcher is the Dayton Daily News opinion pages editor. She writes about state government, education, the environment, higher education and all things Dayton.
Martin Gottlieb is an editorial writer and columnist for the Dayton Daily News opinion pages. He focuses on the political process itself and does such national issues as war, the economy, taxes and Social Security, as well as a hodge-podge of local and state issues.Home > Blogs > A Matter of Opinion > Archives > 2010 > February > 20 > Entry
Editorial: Flawed stimulus doing good around the state
Calculating how many jobs the federal stimulus has stimulated is kind of like asking how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. Does anyone really have confidence that a precise number can be had, given our inability to know what would have happened to the economy in the absence of the stimulus?
President Barack Obama and a bunch of his people spent this week talking up the stimulus on the occasion of its first anniversary. They were on defense, with Republicans and, indeed, many Americans, wondering if the $787 billion effort has worked.
After all, unemployment nationally is nearly 10 percent; it’s a full point higher in Ohio.
The president reminds people that things really could have been worse, that the economy was crumbling fast when he proposed the stimulus.
What’s incontrovertible is that if the stimulus funds hadn’t been there, state and local governments and schools would be on a different footing today.
Even for people who love to hate government, it’s worth considering how ugly the situation would be here, but for the feds’ money.
The Columbus Dispatch reported this week that Ohio is set to receive $10 billion under the stimulus program. The largest amounts are for Medicaid assistance ($2.8 billion) and to stabilize the state budget ($1 billion).
Schools are the biggest direct and indirect beneficiaries of the money. The state has only so much discretion — because of federal law — as to how it can reduce spending on medical care for the poor. But on schools, it has legal leeway to cut. (On a political level, of course, the pressure to support them is great.)
Let there be no doubt that schools would have been hurting badly if the feds had not come along.
Some of the stimulus money will take a while to arrive in Ohio or will be spent over years. But the state’s current two-year $50 billion budget is patched together with close to $6 billion in stimulus money.
If the state had 10 percent less money today— given that a sweeping 10-percent across-the-board cut simply can’t be imposed on every agency (think prisons) — Ohio would be in a stunningly bad way. So would its citizens.
Remember in 2005 when state lawmakers were considering cutting the local government fund? That would have meant that cities, counties and townships would have taken cuts of up to 20 percent. Remember the uproar then about many police and firefighters, among others, could lose their jobs?
Remember the protests when library funding was on the chopping block?
Those reductions absolutely pale in comparison to what would have happened if Ohio hadn’t been bailed out by Washington.
Meanwhile, plenty of the federal money has gone to the private sector, including in Ohio, in the form of government contracts, construction projects, and loan programs, and even indirectly through the unemployment checks that have kept out-of-work people buying groceries and making their house payments.
Another hefty junk of the stimulus money — $120 billion — went directly to individuals and small businesses in the form of tax cuts, which were also designed to keep money flowing and people spending.
Has every stimulus dollar been spent wisely? Of course not. Was there ever a way to ensure that? No.
Is it possible that without massive intervention the businesses and families that are still trying to recover from a near economic meltdown would be the worse off today? Entirely.
Permalink | Comments (42) | Post your comment | Categories: Economy, Editorials, Ellen Belcher
Comments
By Bob
February 20, 2010 6:44 AM | Link to this
When are we going to get responsible and realize that we have been spending beyond our means for many years. It is time to reign in spending. We have got to put off the wants until we can afford them.
By Kurt
February 20, 2010 6:44 AM | Link to this
High Taxes, Phony litatagion assaults, smothering red tape, and government educated airheads, all democrat policies, have caused Ohio’s woes. How about getting the fair tax passed, and let the people earn and spend their money the way they want to, the way the founders intended. I do not mean Mao and Stalin, the heros of democrats.
By Bob
February 20, 2010 6:45 AM | Link to this
When are we going to get responsible and realize that we have been spending beyond our means for many years. It is time to reign in spending. We have got to put off the wants until we can afford them.
By Kurt
February 20, 2010 6:58 AM | Link to this
one more time my childdren, 4.7% unemployment, 13,200 stock market, strong dollar, no attacks for seven and a half years, record high industrial growth, and proud to say, God bless America, not God—D—-America, like Dumbama did, President Bush, do you miss him yet folks??
By Kurt
February 20, 2010 7:03 AM | Link to this
Not a word Martin, of how Obama reported thousands of saved or created jobs, too funny, in districts that dont even exist?—what would you of said, if it had been Bush doing this??
By Rob
February 20, 2010 7:23 AM | Link to this
Kurt, are you sure you want to go that route? The data you quote is reflective of the high water mark of President Bush’s years. Namely, the economy he inherited from President Clinton. What did those same statistics reflect after eight years of President Bush? Unemployment was not 4.7% - Bush’s final number was 8.8%. The Dow tanked at 7,700 under President Bush and there was no “strong industrial growth”. In fact, he left you three consecutive quarters of unprecedented industrial contraction after insisting one month before the market meltdown that “the fundamentals of the economy are strong”. By the way, President Obama never once uttered the words “God—D—-America”. Kurt, that’s a lie and you know it is. Here’s a homework project for you. Research the growth in the inherited unemployment rates under Bush and Obama and tell me whose number is better. Investigate the growth in the Dow under Bush and Obama and tell me whose number is better. Kurt, repeating lies does not make them true.
By Stimulus Truth
February 20, 2010 8:17 AM | Link to this
Everytime there is a budget shortfall the same tired arguments are draged out “for the children” In Ohio 81% of the typical school budget goes to salaries and benefits, the rest to the children. That is the problem. I suggest everyone listen to the new governor of New Jerseys speech to the state assembly on there budget woes, it is nearly the same as us. The problem isn’t us its the politicians and the newspapers that don’t do there jobs looking out for us. http://www.youtube.com/watchv=NYUUqYDEyuo
By Informed Taxpayer
February 20, 2010 8:44 AM | Link to this
Stimulus Truth - would you like the students to just go to school and sit around staring at walls? OF COURSE school budgets pay salaries to teachers, paraprofessionals, librarians, etc. - schooling children takes work, which requires workers. Did you want teachers to subsist off the land, or actually have a paycheck? The ARRA worked almost exactly as planned. The country has been helped tremendously, as has Ohio. Basic common sense and economics says the government must spend when times are hard, and conserve when times are good. The Bush administration did just the opposite. It will take more than one year to work ourselves out of this downturn left to us by irresponsible politicians in the Bush years. Knee-jerk, partisan reactions are not helpful nor are they credible.
By tommyv
February 20, 2010 8:44 AM | Link to this
And just where is this money coming from, Martin, the tooth fairy?
By scoobydo
February 20, 2010 9:40 AM | Link to this
“After Voting To Kill Recovery, 110 GOP Lawmakers Tout Its Success, Ask For More Money”. In December, the Congressional Budget Office reported that the stimulus had successfully created up to 1.6 million jobs, and today, a report shows the Recovery Act will ultimately create 2.5 million jobs. Even the conservative American Enterprise Institute found that the stimulus had boosted the U.S. economy by 4 percent.Republican leaders gambled on casting the stimulus as a failure in order to win elections in 2010.ThinkProgress finds that over half of the GOP caucus, 110 lawmakers — from the House and Senate — are guilty of stimulus hypocrisy.
By Rob
February 20, 2010 9:46 AM | Link to this
The point I think “Stimulus Truth” is trying to make (educators and school administrators are overpaid) could use some context. According to IBM’s annual report, salaries and personnel costs are 83% of their total expense categories. And that’s in an R&D intensive market context. So while we’re told our public schools need to be “run more like a business” - what we find when we put their expenditures alongside for profit corporations, they’re actually running a little more efficiently than for profit companies, If I accept the statistic presented. Here’s an idea, if you want the salary portion of the pie to reduce by half, you could double the available budget.
By The Truth
February 20, 2010 9:52 AM | Link to this
Hey Rob, You are way out of line. George Bush had the catastrophic 9/11 nightmare 9 months into office. This is the reason we are fighting 2 wars unfortunately. Obviously that was a rule changer you dumb@##. BHO is an arrogant muslim ahole. The AMERICANS in this Country do not want more government, especially healthcare. Wake the F@#* up you Clown !.
By It's Great in Dayton
February 20, 2010 9:56 AM | Link to this
I guess some Daytonians are creating a stimulus package for themselves….More reason to leave Dayton ASAP. DAYTON — Thieves are ransacking southeast Dayton, breaking into homes and cars at a pace that has police overwhelmed and asking for the community’s help. Reports of home burglaries there are up 44 percent this year and on pace to race past 2009’s five-year high of 732, according to Dayton Police Department data. Car break-ins have soared from 58 reported at this time last year to 139 through Sunday, Feb. 14 — a 140 percent increase.
By J.T.
February 20, 2010 10:00 AM | Link to this
Hey Rob ! Remember 9/11 ?????. Game changer for our Country. Bush had that less than 9 months into his Presidency, how ironic that our illiterate voters put a muslim in the white house 8 years later. Lock and load ! it’s time for voter reform !!!.
By Rob
February 20, 2010 10:01 AM | Link to this
Maybe you should change your handle to “The Juvenile Pejorative”, I’m not sure “The Truth” fits. How do the evnts of Septmeber 11, 2001 account as a reason to invade and occupy Iraq? President Obama is not a muslim, but so what if he was? Saying President Obama is a muslim is a lie, and you know it is. None of your equivocations for Presideny Bush’s challenges have a single thing to do with why his economy tanked. Unfunded Medicare prescription drug benefits plus two needless tax cuts while he was entangling America’s bravest in a war of adventure is the predicate reason our nation’s budget situation headed south.
By J.T.
February 20, 2010 10:06 AM | Link to this
Hey Rob ! Remember 9/11 you Clown ?. Less than 9 months into Bush’s term. Enough said.
By J.T.
February 20, 2010 10:12 AM | Link to this
Rob: 9/11 happened 8+ months into the Bush Presidency, game changer. BHO has no excuses other than be an obvious arrogant muslim.
By Kurt
February 20, 2010 10:25 AM | Link to this
Rob, you are a moron. It has been a downhill ride ever since Nov 2006. What happened then, The Communist took over both houses of Congress, and now with the communist man-child in charge, watch out baby,—-W—-do you miss him yet folks??
By Rob
February 20, 2010 10:26 AM | Link to this
JTruthiness - what is your point? That somehow 9/11 was the cause of everyn economic woe President Bush encountered, but somehow he magically reset evrything to hunky dory on Jan. 19, 2009 and it’s been straight down hill since? Despite all the data and ledaing indicators that prove otherwise? And you’re calling me a clown?
By Rob
February 20, 2010 10:33 AM | Link to this
I’d like to respect my neoconservative peers - but I can’t seem to find a single salient point in the midst of their name-calling and religion-bating. Look, if you in the Republican party ever expect to betaken seriously again, you need to start acting like grown adults. For the sake of our democracy and the Republic writ large, I sure hope you can step up.
By Kurt
February 20, 2010 10:38 AM | Link to this
Rob my boy, when you stay in a church where the hate filled racist preacher says, not god bless america but god damn america, you are saying it—-or you never would have stayed that long. As I say, he is a nobody, who couldnt run a Kool aid stand.
By Kurt
February 20, 2010 10:43 AM | Link to this
Rob my boy, when you stay in a church where the hate filled racist preacher says, not god bless america but god damn america, you are saying it—-or you never would have stayed that long. As I say, he is a nobody, who couldnt run a Kool aid stand.
By Stimulus Truth
February 20, 2010 11:36 AM | Link to this
Dear Informed Taxpayer I for one did not mention Bush or Obama, so who is the partisan with a knee jerk reaction? The point I was trying to make was that all politicians are to blame in our budget woes. Government schools are typical of the wider problems that we face. I did not say we should not pay teachers nor did I say decent benefits were not applicable. Maybe a good 401k plan with matching funds would be better for state workers then guaranteed pensions and health benefits, which would be more in line with the typical private citizen who pays there salaries anyway. You also said that basic common sense says that we need to spend money in hard times; I for one do not think that the typical household in America operates that way, maybe yours does. Also I did not mention the billions of interest we have to pay on this stimulus, and who we owe this money to (Chinese). I also think that Keynesian economics is highly debatable. So again, let me lay out the expenditures of a typical school budget in Ohio maybe you will be able to see the issue that I see. Salaries-63% Fringe Benefits-18% Capital Outlay (Buses & Equipment)-1% Supplies & Textbooks-3% Purchased Services-7% Other-8% Notice I did not mention Republican or Democrat, nor did it evolve into name calling. Regards
By The Old Cold Warrior
February 20, 2010 12:01 PM | Link to this
I am corrupt but am reasonably nice and reasonably priced. I can be a pet Gore Whore and or a partisan Obamamaniac media slut, as long as I get a cut.
By mike
February 20, 2010 2:45 PM | Link to this
kurt, you mention jerimiah wright’s speech, however you only take the one line incredibly out of context. if you would actually be listening to what the man was discussing, the horrible human rights crimes committed by the united states or with the support of the united states, the god damn america comment makes sense. america is historically one of the worst human rights violators in the world, we are not the innocent, great nation that people try to portray us as. read some history that didn’t come from a middle school history class and actually learn about this country.
By Rob
February 20, 2010 3:30 PM | Link to this
Stimulus Truth, who are (as a group with any national affiliation) the largest holders of U.S public debt instruments and obligations?
By Rob
February 20, 2010 3:56 PM | Link to this
Kurt, you make an excellent point about the community of worship, what is says about individulas and what they believe. I couldn’t agree with you more. Tell me, was President Obama in the pews the day of the sermon you quote?
By Stimulus Truth
February 20, 2010 4:23 PM | Link to this
Rob, I’m not sure what your point is, but I will play. Outside of the federal reserve and foreign holders which account for aprox. 77%, the next closest would be state and local governments around 6%, mutual funds 5%, private pensions 2%, state and local pensions 2% etc. I guess your going to tell me that out of the 2% it would be the Teachers Union. Anyway my conversation was really not about teachers it was an example, it could have been about the local brotherhood of garbage haulers. This is about spending money that we don’t have and spending the money of future generations. What would you do to bring state costs down?
By Rob
February 20, 2010 5:11 PM | Link to this
In actual fact, the largest holders of U.S. public debt are NOT the “Chinese”. Individual and corporate bond holders from the United States are the largest holders. My point is that making uniformed claims about “owing money to the Chinese” is specious at best. Americans hold more American debt than the Chinese do. The Japanese hold more American debt than the Chinese do. You might not like the stimulus on principle, and that’s fine. But don’t go manufacturing half truths to make other uniformed individuals afraid of some non-existant “bogey man”. That’s demagoguery and I think you know better.
By Davidss2
February 20, 2010 6:40 PM | Link to this
Re the crime in east Dayton. Just put up some red light cameras. That will fix everything, heee, heee. When will the city commission get rid of the police chief clown. He talked about how necessary the redlight speed cameras are because of the dangerous intersections AND how well the cameras stop speeding at those intersections (after collecting lots of money). What about the thousands of other intersections? Don’t they need speed cameras. RedFlex of Australia who is getting 2/3 of the money, should put them up at every intersection.
By It's Great in Dayton!!!
February 20, 2010 8:06 PM | Link to this
More reason to leave Dayton ASAP. DAYTON — Thieves are ransacking southeast Dayton, breaking into homes and cars at a pace that has police overwhelmed and asking for the community’s help. Reports of home burglaries there are up 44 percent this year and on pace to race past 2009’s five-year high of 732, according to Dayton Police Department data. Car break-ins have soared from 58 reported at this time last year to 139 through Sunday, Feb. 14 — a 140 percent increase.
By Winemiller
February 20, 2010 8:19 PM | Link to this
Gottlieb misses the point as usual. The government which produces nothing takes money away from the private sector to pay for programs and stimulus spending. History has proven time and time again that money is better spent, spent more effectively and has more impact when kept and spent by the individual and not the governement. Most of this so called “stimulus spending” was intended to and has produced the largest growth spurt of government bureacracy in modern history. Our nation is broke teetering with the rest of the world on the brink of castostrophic economic collapse - an economic armageddon and liberals like Gottlieb think the stimulus was money wisely and well spent. What illogical perverse thinking they employ. We’ve spent ourselves to the brink, so lets spend even more and then congratulate ourselves for money well spent!
By Kurt
February 20, 2010 10:20 PM | Link to this
Yes Rob, he heard it all, and even worse, always remember this, this people who voted for dumbama, vote for a living, get it???
By TRS
February 20, 2010 10:59 PM | Link to this
Rob - I believe the Chinese are 3rd on the list in holding our debt - right? Is it your contention that is a good thing? Is it your contention that the spending spree we’ve been on is a good thing? Is it your conention that our long term unfunded obligations are not an issue? Is it your contention that the debt is of little relevance? Do any of these things concern you?
By Concerned
February 21, 2010 1:59 AM | Link to this
After reading this editorial, it is certainly worth taking time to watch the following. http://www.breitbart.tv/watch-live-major-speakers-address-cpac-2010/
By Kurt
February 21, 2010 7:08 AM | Link to this
Hey Mike, You are a liar and a traitor as well as a fool, if you dont love this country then get the hell out, and take the organizer with you
By Davidss2
February 21, 2010 10:35 AM | Link to this
Ellen tries to make the stimulus pork bill okay because it gave some money to the states which dribbled down to schools. WHAT WILL THEY DO FOR MONEY NEXT YEAR? That will be gone. They haven’t learned to live within their means and are relying on fed money (our taxes) to keep them going.
By Davidss2
February 21, 2010 10:35 AM | Link to this
Ellen tries to make the stimulus pork bill okay because it gave some money to the states which dribbled down to schools. WHAT WILL THEY DO FOR MONEY NEXT YEAR? That money will be gone. They haven’t learned to live within their means and are relying on fed money (our taxes) to keep them going.
By Concerned
February 22, 2010 1:18 AM | Link to this
To gain a better understanding of our economy, it is helpful to view the following. http://mises.org/MediaPlayer.aspx?Id=2285
By FAM
February 22, 2010 9:29 AM | Link to this
Concerned The website your suggest, also argues that our ‘socialist’ road system should be privatized, and I am sure the schools, libraries, and every other public service provided, should be in private hands. Do you realy support such extreme views?
By Concerned
February 26, 2010 6:19 AM | Link to this
To Fam, Why do you consider free market capitalism to be an extreme view? Private schools generally provide an excellent education to their students. You only need look at the telephone industry to see how deregulation dramatically improved what was once very basic phone equipment and systems.
By FAM
February 27, 2010 8:37 PM | Link to this
Concerned- If you are referring to an Ann Rand style of free market, then yes I hold that to be an extreme view. There are an untold number of laws to restrict individuals from stealing, defrauding, physically injuring, or damaging property, etc). There must be equivalent restricts to insure that corporations do not harm others, or take advantage of weaker members of our society. When the market place is “free” then we had child labor, unsafe work environments, sweat shops, poisoned water and air, products that failed and harmed people, etc. I believe that anyone who believes that the “Free Market” is the answer to all problems are as delusional as those that think that the Government can be the answer to all problems.