spring of 2009, $831 billion. and unemployment benefits passed since that time, $185 billion and the payroll tax cut extension $93 billion, $69 billion has not been paid back and ben bernanke s tag, $2.8 trillion. if you add in the $297 billion the cost of the jobs bill, $3.8 trillion. $3.8 trillion. that is a stunning and shocking number, and here we are almost four years exactly after the financial crisis began. according to research first firm btig, america till has 735,000 fewer jobs than at the peak in 2007. of course, that s just an absolute number. there are more people at working age now, so the hole is significantly bigger than that. so will borrowing money now turn it around or is this a case of diminishing returns? 100 billion, 300 billion, and then 3.8 trillion, throwing more money at a problem may or may not help fix it. outfront is robert reich and dan mitchell senior fellow at the cato institute. dan, i want to make it clear that given the timing of the fin
spring of 2009, $831 billion. and unemployment benefits passed since that time, $185 billion and the payroll tax cut extension $93 billion, $69 billion has not been paid back and ben bernanke s tag, $3.8 trillion. if you add in the $297 billion the cost of the jobs bill, $3.8 trillion. $3.8 trillion. that is a stunning and shocking number, and here we are almost four years exactly after the financial crisis began. according to research first firm btig, america till has 735,000 fewer jobs than at the peak in 2007. of course, that s just an absolute number. there are more people at working age now, so the hole is significantly bigger than that. so will borrowing money now turn it around or is this a case of diminishing returns? 100 billion, 300 billion, and then 3.8 trillion, throwing more money at a problem may or may not help fix it. outfront is robert reich and dan mitchell senior fellow at the cato institute. dan, i want to make it clear that given the timing of the fin
outfront tonight is the economy, stupid. in a surprise news conference today the president blamed congress for keeping americans out of work. they left most of the jobs plan just sitting there, and in light of the head winds that we re facing right now, i urged them to reconsider because there are steps to take right now to put more people back to work. the president is angry that congress has not passed his jobs bill, which sat on the shelf since last fall. part of it did pass. the payroll tax cut extension and long-term unemployment insurance, but the president wants to pass the rest immediately and the price tag is $297 billion. his bill summary, which we obtained from the white house, says that money will go to things like preventing teacher layoffs, modernizing schools, building science labs for a total of $297 billion. does spending more add up? we wanted to know the answer to that question. we did the math on how much money taxpayers have spent on stimulus since