In his Congressional Testimony Russ Roberts does not mince words:
Over the last two years, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 has injected over half a trillion dollars into the US economy in hopes of spurring recovery and creating jobs.
The results have been deeply disappointing. Job growth has been anemic while our deficit has grown, limiting our future policy options. Fourteen million workers are unemployed. The unemployment rate among African Americans is over 15%. This is an American tragedy.
What went wrong? Why were the predictions so inaccurate?
Old keynesians always can say “the stimulus should have been bigger”.
That´s exactly what they do. Krugman went so far as to deny there ever was fiscal stimulus!