October 20, 2009
In a Washington Post column, Robert J. Samuelson wrote, "What can government do to crank up America's creaky job machine? We'll be arguing ferociously about that in coming months, and the answer, frankly, isn't clear." Many economists "fear that exploding federal debt -- incurred partly to pay for more spending and tax cuts -- could trigger a new crisis that would destroy jobs." Almost "everyone agrees that the outlook is bleak." With the labor force "expanding by more than 1 million new workers annually, economists Joseph Seneca and James Hughes of Rutgers estimate that even the job growth of the 1990s (2.4 million a year) wouldn't reduce today's 9.8 percent unemployment to 5 percent until 2017." The Keynesian solution "holds that government activism can generate more jobs. ... Many ideas are circulating for Stimulus 2.0, though the controversy over Stimulus 1.0 suggests that it will be relabeled."
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