Whither the American economy?
Will last week’s stimulus package passed in Washington help turn our economic fortunes upward?
Have we bottomed out?
Will things get worse?
Those questions remain unanswered, and that lack of answers contributes in no small part to the economic malaise in which we find our country.
The crises in our financial and credit markets, seen on such a broad scale in home financing, delivered foundation-shaking blows to our economy and, perhaps more importantly, our faith in our economic system.
Individual optimism about recovery is continually undermined by Wall Street where markets seem inclined to sink regardless of the day’s news.
President Obama signed a recovery bill last week committing our nation to a significant spending plan in hopes of providing a stimulus to help turn our fortunes in a positive direction.
Whether that plan will work is certainly open to question with U.S. Sen. Bob Corker directly challenging its probabilities of success in a speech here the day after the bill was signed.
Corker obviously represents the viewpoint of the political opposition, but can certainly make a strong case for his argument.
In truth, no absolute answers are evident. If they were, we certainly wouldn’t be struggling through our current woes.
Obama obviously is trying to provide some form of an answer as the overall electorate that brought him to power desires.
Corker is on target when he declares our problems originate in our credit and housing markets.
What remains at question is how we fix those problems.
Obama and the Democrat-controlled Congress have come up with an attempt at righting our economic ship.
How that bill impacts us directly and indirectly remains uncertain in many ways. Digesting the huge bill will require various governmental agencies time to understand and put to use.
Still, it is an effort and at this time this country needs something.
Even those with grave doubts about its effectiveness, like Sen. Corker, no doubt hope that it will indeed work.
While we await the results, we should remember this country has survived worse, even in the past few decades.
Many would remember the arguably much more difficult times in the early 1980s when interest rates, inflation and unemployment were in double digits and gas prices were relatively greatly higher.
And, they might remember that, even as President Obama now offers hope and change, the relatively new president then, Ronald Reagan delivered a message of better times when he said:
"The economic ills we suffer have come upon us over several decades. They will not go away in days, weeks, or months, but they will go away. They will go away because we as Americans have the capacity now, as we've had in the past, to do whatever needs to be done to preserve this last and greatest bastion of freedom.”
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