Too Late to Stop Recession?

Here's the bad news.

(AP) If history is any guide, government efforts to combat recessions often come too late to do much good. Furthermore, such efforts can sow the seeds for the next downturn.

The news Friday that the U.S. economy shed 80,000 jobs in March, the worst loss in five years, triggered a wave of hand-wringing, fault-finding and proposed fixes on Capitol Hill and the presidential campaign trail. The jobs report added to a building consensus that the country has slipped into recession, one that may have begun earlier this year or late last year.

Yet past efforts to head off or alleviate recessions with crash spending programs and tax rebates - classic antirecessionary plays - often did not kick in until after the recession had ended.

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