Recently the cover of a national news magazine proclaimed that “The Recession is Over.” Perhaps it should have had the subtitle “but not for all of us.” Job losses are at 30-year highs both nationally and locally and everywhere people keep losing, their jobs, their homes and all too often their hope.

But if the recession is technically over, was the stimulus (American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and the Troubled Asset Relief Program the big reasons for our financial salvation? And what aspects of these stimulus programs did the most?
There is good stimulus and bad stimulus. It’s good when it helps people buy or keep their homes. It’s bad when the “too big to fail” financial services firms get to pay multimillion dollar bonuses to a few key executives.
It’s good when it helps the environment by taking old gas guzzlers off the roads, and bad when we do this merely to prop up the same failing automakers we just bailed out at the expense of environmental programs.
It’s good when workers get more take-home pay to spend on everyday necessities. It’s going to be bad when those same workers find that the new tax withholding tables issued to increase take-home pay causes them to have to pay taxes come April 15 next year.
So while technical indicators may say the recession is over, taxpayers will still feel the pain. The recovery may be just as painful for many of us as we see the news of bankers, car companies and TARP recipients once again reaping in big bucks and bonuses.

Wayne Tanna of McCully is a professor of accounting with an interest in tax policy.