Paul Krugman: The Stimulus Tragedy

"Five years have passed since President Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act -- the "stimulus" -- into law. With the passage of time, it has become clear that the act did a vast amount of good. It helped end the economy's plunge; it created or saved millions of jobs; it left behind an important legacy of public and private investment. It was also a political disaster. And the consequences of that political disaster -- the perception that stimulus failed -- have haunted economic policy ever since...[T]he overall narrative of the stimulus is tragic. A policy initiative that was good but not good enough ended up being seen as a failure, and set the stage for an immensely destructive wrong turn." Paul Krugman in The New York Times.