$7.66 Trillion of Your Taxpayer Dollars. Gone.
Sometimes numbers tell the story and tonight there is one number that tells you everything you need to know about what's wrong with Washington's playbook.
That number is $7.66 trillion in taxpayer dollars. That's the total of all the stimulus dollars the Federal Government has used to set this nation's economy back on the right path. It’s 49 percent of our nation's GDP.
In other words, we spent half of what the world's largest economy can produce in a single year to bail out. The list is long. Take a look....
Bear Stearns: $29B
Economic stimulus checks: $178B
Bush Home Owners bailout: $300B
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac bailout: $400B
AIG bailout: $42B
Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 (TARP): $700B
Automakers bailout: $25B
American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009: $787B
Obama Home Owners bailout: $275B
Small business loans: $15B
Automakers bailout: $22B
Quantitative Easing I: $1.75T
Quantitative Easing II: $600B
Quantitative Easing III: $960B
Quantitative Easing IV: $1.08T
Operation Twist: $400B
Extending Payroll Tax Cut: $100B
Whew! That's a lot of money and where are we? Nowhere, as far as I can tell. Unemployment is at 7.8%, exactly where it was when President Obama came into office.
The economy is contracting, shrinking, and consumers and taxpayers say they aren't too happy. It's no wonder. All of this money out the door and much of it will have to be paid back. Our economy hasn't recovered. The stimulus spending was a bust!
Next time you hear Paul Krugman say we need more stimulus spending, ask him: where's my $7.66 trillion, mister?