Posted on 07/09/2011 3:05:45 PM PDT by John Semmens
The president’s Council of Economic Advisors announced that President Obama’s $800 billion stimulus program saved up to 3.6 million jobs at a cost of “only $278,000” apiece.
“It’s really a remarkable accomplishment given the dire state of the economy when he took office,” Austan Goolsbee, Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors concluded. “A great catastrophe was surely averted by the president’s heroic action.”
A little math might lead to a different appraisal of the President’s program. The average household income in America is less than $50,000 per year. Mailing a check for that amount to each of the 3.6 million who got the saved jobs would’ve cost only $180 billion. Where did the other $620 billion of the President’s stimulus spending go?
According to Goolsbee, “the situation is more complicated than the typical American can comprehend. We couldn’t just write a check to every unemployed person. There had to be planning and oversight. That costs money. On top of this there are commissions, finders’ fees and overhead. That doesn’t come cheap. Finally, there’s also a certain amount of ‘shrinkage’ involved in any business transaction—money that just disappears and can’t be accounted for. In my opinion, a net of one $50,000 job for each $278,000 in federal outlays is not a bad rate of return for a government project of this magnitude.”
Meanwhile, the Canadian economy, which mirrored our recession until early 2009, is doing considerably better today. Canadian unemployment is down to 7.4%–all without a “stimulus” program of its own.
In related news, President Obama’s senior political adviser David Plouffe says he doubts that high unemployment will hurt the President’s reelection prospects. “Unemployment is just a statistic,” Plouffe contended. “Most voters can barely do the math to figure out how much change they ought to get back when they buy a ‘Happy Meal.’ The contention that they can understand anything about how the economy works in sufficient detail to hold it against the president is a fantasy.”
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http://azconserv1.wordpress.com/2011/07/09/president-admits-mistakes-on-economy/
Boy, you hit the nail on the head with this one. Their condescension is obvious when rephrased in this manner.
Nothing says success like 278k per job. Bravo!
“According to Goolsbee, “the situation is more complicated than the typical American can comprehend.”
He really meant that.
Good stuff. But it’s so real, it ends up going from satire to wry humor, like a Yakov Smirnov joke.
PATENT BULLSHIT !!!
What happened to "created or saved"? The goal line keeps changing!
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