Quote

Well, I think as long as people are talking about stimulus, I think the Fed will be thinking about cutting rates because monetary policy is the better way to go because you can turn it on and turn it off.

And taking more money out of the private economy and having the government perform as it has poorly done with the stimulus I don't think is the right way to go.

I'm not sure it's the stimulus money that will necessarily allow the economy to recover. It will help to fortify our budgets, frankly, to ensure that there isn't as much backsliding in the areas of education and healthcare, for example.

If we don't get this economy going, the numbers that represent this stimulus package are going to be small compared to the loss of revenue to the federal government for our economy.

The stimulus legislation, technically known as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, was a mixture of tax cuts for families and businesses; increased transfer payments, like unemployment insurance; and increased direct government spending, like infrastructure investment.

Where we're coming down is we currently have $787 billion of stimulus that's been passed. We're certainly focusing on spending that money as quickly and as efficiently and as transparently as we can. We think that's absolutely the right strategy.

Anything that's done to address unemployment in terms of massive stimulus spending is going to exacerbate deficits. And anything that's done to address deficits in the short-term is going to exacerbate unemployment.

What did the taxpayers get out of the Obama stimulus? More debt. That money wasn't just spent and wasted - it was borrowed, spent, and wasted.

But, at the same time, I think that there is room for economic stimulus in terms of accelerated depreciation to encourage businesses to invest and to grow and ultimately to hire more people again.

Well, the infrastructure part of the stimulus has worked. There's absolutely no question about it. We can demonstrate in Pennsylvania and other states around the union how it's produced good, paying jobs both on the construction sites and back in American factories. It has worked.