The Economic Stimulus Package: Epic Success or Epic Fail?

March 2009
The much talked about $787 billion economic stimulus package has received a lot of attention from the media and has inspired heated debate between Democrats and Republicans, as well as media pundits. Wealthy investors, however, don’t feel it will have much of the proposed impact. A robust 59% of wealthy investors surveyed feel the package will have little or no impact on the economy, and only a scant 14% believe it will have significant impact.
This is not surprising considering the partisan strum und drang that has dogged the stimulus package every step of the way, despite both the Republican and Democrats calling for a non-partisan cooperation to help the country overall. There is anger in the affluent community against Wall Street but also against the government, who are trying to fix a mess that may be beyond their influence in many ways.

But even as lawmakers face what’s been called “spending fatigue” with such huge price tags on items like the first stimulus, the bailout money from last fall and the $410 billion omnibus spending bill from last year that President Obama signed this month, a second economic stimulus package may well be considered later on and certainly has been on the minds of some economists and lawmakers as they assess the worsening economy.