A Stimulus Success Story (Note: Happy Ending not guaranteed)
So the Stimulus has been an “undeniable” success apparently. When I heard that claim I immediately laughed, it was a joke right? I checked the date, way too early for April 1st, but you never know right? But apparently it’s not a joke, and that realization made me laugh even harder then when I thought it was. I then recited my new slogan, “I can’t wait for November,” to myself. And while my birthday is in November, and one of my favorite holidays, election day is what I’m truly looking forward to this year.
As we all know, without this $787 billion stimulus (which in actuality has topped $800 billion in costs) we will see 8% unemployment. Oh wait, we’ve peaked 10, and are currently at 9.7%. So how has this helped? Oh yeah, but it has saved 2 million jobs. Saved of course being the key word and very hard to disprove, since it is hard to gauge what our nation’s economic situation would be like without the stimulus. And that 2 million mark is definitely debatable, but for the purposes of giving the Obama administration the benefit of the doubt I will accept and use the figure for my own calculations.
Ok, let’s do some math now:
($787 billion / 2 million (jobs)) = $393,500 per job.
Most of these jobs are salaries between $40,000 and $60,000 a year. So, we are spending 8x (on average) of what these jobs are worth to “save” them. All of these “saved” jobs are government jobs, and massive government spending programs are the only thing keeping them going. Evan Bayh (D-Indiana) himself said “[I]f I could create one job in the private sector by helping to grow a business, that would be one more than Congress has created in the last six months.” I agree whole-heartedly with Senator Bayh. Congress has not created jobs, they have only “saved” public sector positions, many of them wasteful and useless.
This money could have been better spent in a million other ways, I will highlight upon a few ways which would certainly create more economic and job growth. We could pay 3.28 million unemployed people $50,000/year (for 4 years) and send them to college during this time for an undergraduate. In addition to promoting long term growth, this would sponsor short term job growth at colleges. Additional staff would be needed for a large new influx of students.
Or…
There are around 8-10 million people who have lost their jobs between 2007 and now. This stimulus could have sent each of those people a check for $78,700 which could be used to send them back to school, or to pay bills, or whatever. This is not something I would actually support, but this just shows that the idea of spending $787 billion to save 2 million jobs is absurd. The stimulus is clearly a failure, and all remaining unspent money should be used to pay off our nation’s debt, or returned to small businesses and taxpayers in the form of tax credits.
Cutting $787 billion in taxes on small businesses nationwide would have a tremendously positive effect on job growth. I would bet that at least 5-6 million jobs would be created within the first 2 years. But instead we have pissed away this borrowed and printed money, and mortgaged the future of America for a “stimulus” plan that has failed in its promise and failed in every sense of the word.
But hey, if we hadn’t passed this, we would have hit 8% unemployment. Imagine that.
-Nick
As we all know, without this $787 billion stimulus (which in actuality has topped $800 billion in costs) we will see 8% unemployment. Oh wait, we’ve peaked 10, and are currently at 9.7%. So how has this helped? Oh yeah, but it has saved 2 million jobs. Saved of course being the key word and very hard to disprove, since it is hard to gauge what our nation’s economic situation would be like without the stimulus. And that 2 million mark is definitely debatable, but for the purposes of giving the Obama administration the benefit of the doubt I will accept and use the figure for my own calculations.
Ok, let’s do some math now:
($787 billion / 2 million (jobs)) = $393,500 per job.
Most of these jobs are salaries between $40,000 and $60,000 a year. So, we are spending 8x (on average) of what these jobs are worth to “save” them. All of these “saved” jobs are government jobs, and massive government spending programs are the only thing keeping them going. Evan Bayh (D-Indiana) himself said “[I]f I could create one job in the private sector by helping to grow a business, that would be one more than Congress has created in the last six months.” I agree whole-heartedly with Senator Bayh. Congress has not created jobs, they have only “saved” public sector positions, many of them wasteful and useless.
This money could have been better spent in a million other ways, I will highlight upon a few ways which would certainly create more economic and job growth. We could pay 3.28 million unemployed people $50,000/year (for 4 years) and send them to college during this time for an undergraduate. In addition to promoting long term growth, this would sponsor short term job growth at colleges. Additional staff would be needed for a large new influx of students.
Or…
There are around 8-10 million people who have lost their jobs between 2007 and now. This stimulus could have sent each of those people a check for $78,700 which could be used to send them back to school, or to pay bills, or whatever. This is not something I would actually support, but this just shows that the idea of spending $787 billion to save 2 million jobs is absurd. The stimulus is clearly a failure, and all remaining unspent money should be used to pay off our nation’s debt, or returned to small businesses and taxpayers in the form of tax credits.
Cutting $787 billion in taxes on small businesses nationwide would have a tremendously positive effect on job growth. I would bet that at least 5-6 million jobs would be created within the first 2 years. But instead we have pissed away this borrowed and printed money, and mortgaged the future of America for a “stimulus” plan that has failed in its promise and failed in every sense of the word.
But hey, if we hadn’t passed this, we would have hit 8% unemployment. Imagine that.
-Nick
Labels: economy, stimulus, unemployment
posted by Nick at
2/17/2010 09:39:00 PM
14 Comments
