This morning President Obama announced that the administration is speeding up the pace at which they are spending the $787 billion economic stimulus plan in order to save or create thousands of jobs in the next few months. At the news conference it was also announced that his cabinet and his Vice President, Joe Biden, had presented President Obama with a “Roadmap to Recovery,” which lists ten projects that will highlight the next three months of the Recovery Act plan. Just last week the Labor Department reported that in May non farm payrolls fell by 345,000 and the jobless rate rose to 9.4%. While this is certainly not a great number, it is far better than the last few months so it has given some hope for a turnaround in the near future.

Will the speed up in economic stimulus spending be enough to put the United States economy back into growth mode rather than a recessionary period? In the short run the stimulus package spending should most certainly help the economy and the people of the United States. The money that is pouring out will help create new jobs and fund important projects at the same time. The greater question though is whether this stimulus package and the spending that is currently taking place just to keep this country out of another Great Depression type situation will cause problems or help things in the long run. With such huge debt comes quite a bit of risk to the economy and taxpayers over the long haul, so in the intermediate and longer terms the national debt will have to be addressed in a major way. Some economists are predicting the economy in the United States will ramp upwards for a short time because of the massive spending, but then settle back into a deep recession because of the lack of new catalysts. In the end it won’t be government programs that make the economy turn around for good, but the hope is that these programs can bridge the gap and help stave off something even worse.