In the June 30 column “How Obama’s Stimulus Failed” Steve Chapman completely ignores the economic situation when Obama took office. At that time the economy was losing jobs at 750,000 per month (yes, per month!), GDP was dropping at -6 percent (yes, that is a minus!) and credit markets were frozen. While the result of the stimulus was not as good as expected, mainly because the recession was much deeper than was thought at the time, it did accomplish the main task of stopping the fall and reversing the trend. The resulting trend, although slow, is still pointing up instead of down. That is not a failure.
To Chapman’s question of what would happen if there had been no stimulus, perhaps the history of the Great Depression and 25 percent unemployment may be a hint of an answer to that question.
— Arvydas Tamulis, Chicago
