Getting Better

Getting Better

The economy, no matter what else can be said about it, is both undoubtably improving and not yet where it ought to be. While a lethargic Congress is unable to squeeze out anything remotely resembling a follow-up to the promising yet incomplete economic recovery bill, it's still difficult to tell how much more and what kind of recovery is needed, due in equal parts to the general ambiguity of the economy's signifiers for stability and the reluctance of Congress to re-approach the issue. Instead of taking real steps to continue to ensure the stability of the American economy, elected officials have taken to either singing the praises of what they consider to be an already recovered economy, or have begun to relentlessly bemoan the status of the market without offering any, much less any helpful, solutions.
Many people, including economists, look at stocks to prove the health of today's economy, rather than unemployment numbers or other signifiers, the reasoning behind this being that stocks, while not exactly a measure of the spending or financial security of the American people, act as a tangible measurement for the health of American business (or, rather, America's corporations). However, stocks are designed to both rise and fall- nearly always both in one day. If you were to take a year's measure of the stock market as comparable to the health of the economy, it is possible you could achieve an accurate- if far from full- picture. Days, months and even quarters of dips and swells in the market do not prove anything about the economy in the long run, except that it is stil working on some level.
Other analysts use the unemployment numbers, the job creation rates, the national debt or the GDP to measure the economy. Truthfully, no one number will provide a full view of the shortfalls and surges in today's market. Still, it is doubtless that, while the US economy has improved greatly, it is still not in a 'normal' or stable state.
Therefore, shouldn't Congress be doing more? Since Capitol Hill has become effectively allergic to anything that involves national spending, even that of the most rationalized kind, spending that feeds directly back into the economy, economic bills have been few and far between. The state-aid bill passed by the Senate today is certainly progress, but not quite enough. It's Congress' job to spend on the American people, so it would be beneficial for elected officials to get over their fear of using money meant to help Americans to actually help Americans.