Economists Say Stimulus Package Rescued Economy from Free Fall

The Washington Post reported yesterday that lawmakers, feeling the heat from back home due to increasing unemployment and continuing economic hardship, erupted this week in "a wave of criticism and out right anger" at the Obama administration.

But economist Nigel Gault of IHS Global Insight told the Times, "I don't think it's right to look at it by saying, 'Well, the economy is still doing extremely badly, therefore the stimulus didn't work. I'm afraid the answer is, yes, we did badly but we would have done even worse without the stimulus."

The Times said that in interviews with a broad range of economists, it found consensus that "the White House and Congress were right to structure the package as a mix of tax cuts and spending, rather than just tax cuts as Republicans prefer or just spending as many Democrats do."

In a separate story, the Washington Post said that Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, who was the target of a lot of the anger on Capitol Hill this week, particularly from Republicans, had received calls from former Bush administration Treasury officials sympathizing with him and offering encouragement, saying they had endured similar criticism last year while working on a financial bailout initiative in their last months in office.

A Rasmussen Reports poll, conducted Nov. 18-19, said 42 percent of voters rated Geithner's performance as poor, 20 percent said it was good or excellent and 22 percent said it was only fair, with 16 percent not sure.