particularly our budget office director, douglas elmendorf. thank you for being here. thank you for your good work. we will focus again on the economy and steps that can be taken to focus on the recovery and create jobs here last year, at my request, the congressional budget office completed an analysis of the so-called bang for the buck achieved by different fiscal policies proposals. cbo has not updated that work, so we thought it would be useful to have director elmendorf here today to report on his agency s latest conclusions. i am hopeful that congress will .onsider ceo s analysis i would like to begin by briefly reviewing the economic situation now confronting the nation. it is clear that economic recovery we are now experiencing is not what it should be or what we would like it to be. here are some of the factors i believe that are holding back the economy. unemployment remains stubbornly high. the housing crisis that helped spark the downturn is continuing. we have we