In almost every recession and economic downturn that we have had in this country, some stimulus effort in some way was tried. And the idea is the government has the ability that maybe the private sector doesn’t have: to borrow money and stimulate the economy. You spend money on food stamps and infrastructure projects, and that will pay off because people now have money in their pockets that they can spend somewhere else. So you get this multiplier effect, that one dollar creates more economic output.
— ProPublica investigative reporter Michael Grabell on the 2009 stimulus, the biggest economic recovery plan in history.
