September 10, 2011 1:56PM # Do People Pay for These Forecasts? By [David Boaz](https://www.cato.org/people/david-boaz) --- SHARE > The forecasting firm Macroeconomic Advisers said in a report that Obama’s plan — the American Jobs Act — would boost economic growth by 1.3 percentage points in 2012 and lead to 1.3 million new jobs.… > > > Mark Zandi, an economist with Moody’s Analytics, was even more enthusiastic about the plan. He said the jobs package would increase economic growth by 2 percentage points in 2012 and add 1.9 million jobs. –[*Washington Post*, September 10, 2011](http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/obama-jobs-plan-economists-give-good-reviews-but-say-more-needed-on-mortgage-debt/2011/09/09/gIQAYJm9FK_story.html?hpid=z3) > Obama’s program received generally favorable reviews from economists. > > > “Is it worth doing?” wrote Nigel Gault, an economist at IHS Global Insight. ”Yes, it is a bolder-than-expected attempt to inject fiscal stimulus to support an ailing recovery.” –[*Washington Post*, September 10, 2011](http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/top-official-resigns-from-european-central-bank/2011/09/09/gIQAJT82EK_story_1.html) Here’s [another view](https://www.cato.org/obamas-job-speech-full-of-bad-ideas/) of the Obama proposal. Here’s a [critique](http://blogs.reuters.com/james-pethokoukis/2011/09/09/obamas-447-billion-reelection-plan/) of these forecasts. And here’s a [graph](http://www.nationalreview.com/blogs/print/276695) reminding us what happened after President Obama predicted that his first stimulus would actually stimulate the economy. ##### Related Tags [Tax and Budget Policy](https://www.cato.org/tax-budget-policy) [![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).