re: #99 engineer dog

it caused an estimated 2 million people to be hired to do work for which they were paid money

so, unless calling on people to do things in return for which you give them money is not the same as a “job” or “employment”, the answer is yes

however, there is a persistent theory that jobs appear only when a certain class of people who are pleased to describe themselves as “job creators” are entirely satisfied in terms of certain economic conditions, despite the fact that there is no evidence to support this theory

It’s not just “terms of economic conditions”, it’s actual demand for product.

And on the stimulus - you basically long term growth for short-term growth because all of the stimulus money was borrowed and spent on short-term stimulus. This is a chronic problem with our political class - kicking the can down the road.

If the stimulus had been spent mostly on projects that have long-term payoff, it wouldn’t have been so bad. Instead about 2/3rds of it was spent on short term band-aids - aid to the states and small tax cuts.