Obama’s Economists: ‘Stimulus’ Has Cost $278,000 per Job

[FUZO]

Obama’s Economists: ‘Stimulus’ Has Cost $278,000 per Job

http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/...ob_576014.html


The report was written by the White House’s Council of Economic Advisors, a group of three economists who were all handpicked by Obama, and it chronicles the alleged success of the “stimulus” in adding or saving jobs. The council reports that, using “mainstream estimates of economic multipliers for the effects of fiscal stimulus” (which it describes as a “natural way to estimate the effects of” the legislation), the “stimulus” has added or saved just under 2.4 million jobs — whether private or public — at a cost (to date) of $666 billion. That’s a cost to taxpayers of $278,000 per job.

In other words, the government could simply have cut a $100,000 check to everyone whose employment was allegedly made possible by the “stimulus,” and taxpayers would have come out $427 billion ahead.

Furthermore, the council reports that, as of two quarters ago, the “stimulus” had added or saved just under 2.7 million jobs — or 288,000 more than it has now. In other words, over the past six months, the economy would have added or saved more jobs without the “stimulus” than it has with it.

[JsJs24]

Re: Obama’s Economists: ‘Stimulus’ Has Cost $278,000 per Job

I don't even believe the number of jobs saved or created. You can't calculate that information accurately. It's just like with the recession, they claim it would have been worse had they not spend the stimulus, and would have been even better if we spent more. Again, no way to prove it. The Austrian Economists and other free marketers believe the opposite, that no stimulus would have been best, thereby allowing the economy to correct itself. It doesn't matter any more though, they will come up with numbers to tell us what they want us to believe. They will continue to spend until our dollar is broke. That's when socialism can come to the rescue I suspect.