Washington, United States | President Joe Biden's $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan aimed at fueling the recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic is the latest in a long line of efforts by American leaders to bounce back after a calamity. 

Here's a look at how the world's largest economy has used extraordinary government spending to pull itself out of slumps in the past:

- New Deal -

Modern American stimulus began in the wake of the 1929 stock market crash, which wiped out half the value of the New York Stock Exchange and is widely seen as the beginning of the Great Depression.

With around one in four Americans out of work, President Franklin D. Roosevelt took office in 1933 and unveiled the New Deal, a program of lending and spending at a scale not seen in the country before.

These included massive government-funded jobs programs that put people to work, including in public works, the arts and conservation.

It also created the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation to regulate banks and stock trading, as well as Social Security retirement benefits.

However, the country's economic slump did not end until the massive war mobilization that came during World War II.

- Ford, Reagan tax cuts -

Republican presidents Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan opted to cut taxes when the United States went into recession in the 1970s and 1980s, but with different focuses and outcomes.

In a bid to spur consumption during the 1974-1975 recession, Ford turned to tax credits and an increase in the standard yearly deduction, which the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute (EPI) said caused a consumer-driven recovery.

Reagan, who took office in 1981, asked Congress to cut taxes before the country entered a recession later that year, arguing the benefits would boost investment and consumption and lift the economy.

EPI said Reagan's tax cuts were aimed at the rich and not coupled with other stimulus measures like expanded unemployment benefits. 

That led to deeper unemployment before the recession ended in 1983, though EPI said the Federal Reserve's tight monetary policy at the time also played a role.

- Bush tax cuts, rebates -

With the country running a budget surplus and going into recession shortly after he took office, President George W. Bush lowered taxes for all Americans in 2001, then expanded on them in 2003.

The 2001 bill also mailed rebate checks out to taxpayers who had seen their tax burdens lowered, a preview of the stimulus checks of more recent years.

The Bush tax cuts were scheduled to expire in 2010, but after some wrangling between Democrats and Republicans in Congress, a 2012 deal saw about 82 percent of them made permanent while 18 percent expired, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

The Tax Foundation credited Bush with introducing the idea that the middle class should pay a lower level of tax, an idea that survived the end of his presidency in 2009.

- Bush and Obama in the Great Recession -

Before Bush left office, the country was slammed by a combination of financial and housing catastrophes that became the global financial crisis.

In his final months in office, Bush signed a $152 billion spending bill, two-thirds of which was composed of direct stimulus checks to Americans.

With the downturn worsening after he took office in 2009, Obama oversaw passage of a $831 billion measure that included tax cuts, infrastructure spending, expanded unemployment benefits, aid to states and a limited number of stimulus checks -- all aimed at slowing layoffs and encouraging hiring.

However, those steps were not enough to quell the crisis, and it took some sectors of the economy years to recover from the damage of the recession.

- Covid-19 relief -

As the Covid-19 pandemic caused the sharpest downturn since the Great Depression, President Donald Trump signed off on the $2.2 trillion CARES Act in March 2020, which sent out stimulus checks of up to $1,200 to every American, expanded the unemployment safety net and offered loans and grants to small businesses.

The law was meant to get the country through the worst of the pandemic, but as the crisis dragged on with the virus worse than ever, Congress in December approved another $900 billion measure that included $600 stimulus checks and an extension of the pandemic unemployment and small business programs.

As he took office in 2021, Biden urged Congress to pass his $1.9 trillion program, arguing it was necessary to keep the recovery going. 

Biden's package would continue funding for many of the earlier programs, pay for a Covid-19 vaccination campaign, dole out checks of up to $1,400 to many Americans, and grant aid to cash-strapped state and local governments.

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© Agence France-Presse