Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Obama claims 650,000 jobs “saved or created” via Porkulus

Posted on 10/30/2009 7:54:27 AM PDT by wingsof liberty

Further analysis on this story from Ed Morrissey:

posted at 9:30 am on October 30, 2009 by Ed Morrissey Share on Facebook | printer-friendly By which we should deduce that over a million jobs got saved or created, indirectly, according to the White House. The official report will come out later today, but Jake Tapper grabs the advance leak from the White House and runs it down. Pay very close attention to the sources of this data:

The Obama administration’s $787 billion stimulus bill directly saved or created about 650,000 jobs as of the end of last month, administration officials announced this morning.

The numbers come from Congressionally-mandated reports submitted earlier this month by tens of thousands of state and local governments, private companies, colleges, universities, and community organizations nationwide, administration officials said, with the majority of the funds coming from state governments. Factoring jobs indirectly created from the stimulus — not reflected in these numbers — an administration official says in a statement that “because these reports show that less than half of the spending through that date created or saved about 650,000 jobs, they confirm government and private forecaster’s estimates that overall Recovery Act spending has created and saved at least 1 million jobs.”

Moreover, the administration emphasized, these reports do not reflect the job impact of the stimulus plan’s tax cuts, direct payments to individuals, and grants and awards of amounts under $25,000 per recipient. Nor, officials cautioned, do they reflect the indirect job impact of the funds, such as when employers for stimulus projects hired to meet new demand or when hired workers spent their paychecks.

The “majority of funds” came from state governments because Porkulus distributed the money in block grants to the states. What did the states do with that money? They did save jobs, but primarily bureaucratic jobs. States used the money to temporarily paper over budget gaps which would have forced the layoffs of state employees, which should have been a necessary step in slimming down state-level spending.

The administration will claim that it saved the jobs of teachers, police officers, and firefighters with the data submitted by the states. Indeed, we have already seen this in New Hampshire, which listed almost all of its “saved or created” jobs from their education system. What I wrote at the time is just as applicable now: In looking at the table on the last page of the report, it becomes clear that New Hampshire and the federal government directed the money primarily at politically sensitive government jobs. Over two-thirds of the jobs are in the Department of Education, and another 745 in “government services.” Directing the money there allowed New Hampshire to avoid the politically difficult job of downsizing and streamlining in response to the downturn in revenues during the recession. The White House can claim that they saved the job of teachers, police officers, and firefighters whose jobs were never in jeopardy, and New Hampshire avoided cutting jobs elsewhere by shifting the money to cover budget shortfalls.

Meanwhile, what happens to these jobs when Porkulus runs out? Almost none of these jobs are established on new economic growth. They’re either jobs that New Hampshire has to fund anyway (teachers, police officers, firefighters) or one-off project jobs that will disappear when the money does.

No one was going to have a mass layoff of police officers and teachers in New Hampshire or anywhere else. The jobs really at risk were administrative jobs within state government, primarily union jobs (in large part represented by Obama’s ally, the SEIU), as states had to confront an economic reality of lower revenue and rising spending.

Porkulus provided a one-time method of ignoring that reality for a few months by burdening the entire nation with the bad policy decisions of the individual states. But all that did was to delay that day of reckoning, not eliminate it. When the grant money runs out, those states will still have to make tough decisions on the size and costs of their bureaucracies. They will still have to either raise taxes or start trimming their payrolls, and it won’t be the teacher or the firefighter who gets the pink slip. Porkulus will do the same thing that Cash for Clunkers did, which was to postpone the inevitable — and cost us a fortune in doing so. Update: By the way, it was almost two months ago when the administration first claimed it had saved or created one million jobs. I guess nothing much happened after September 10th.

Read more at http://hotair.com/archives/2009/10/30/obama-claims-650000-jobs-saved-or-created-via-porkulus/


TOPICS: Front Page News; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: 111th; bhoeconomy; bhostimulus; economy; jobs; porculus; porkulus; unemployment
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-31 last
To: wingsof liberty

born liar. i dont think they got even the 30,000 they first claimed.


21 posted on 10/30/2009 9:01:53 AM PDT by dalebert
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: wingsof liberty

22 posted on 10/30/2009 9:10:35 AM PDT by Brown Deer (4 Google execs are on Obama's staff - YouTube is owned by Google)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: wingsof liberty

Stimulus jobs overstated by thousands

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20091029/D9BKMVMG0.html


23 posted on 10/30/2009 9:15:04 AM PDT by Dubya-M-DeesWent2SyriaStupid!
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: wingsof liberty

How does one spell FRAUD.That’s all this administration is,One Gigantic Fraud.


24 posted on 10/30/2009 10:00:57 AM PDT by puppypusher (The world is going to the Dogs.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: darkwing104

Best make it “green”.....................


25 posted on 10/30/2009 10:05:04 AM PDT by Red Badger (If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 11 | View Replies]

To: Red Badger

Rush had a great follow up joke to this:

In related news, thanks to the Obama Administration’s new Afghanistan policy, we have created or saved 50,000 terrorists!


26 posted on 10/30/2009 10:59:38 AM PDT by LRoggy (Peter's Son's Business)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 25 | View Replies]

To: Red Badger

Rush had a great follow up joke to this:

In related news, thanks to the Obama Administration’s new Afghanistan policy, we have created or saved 50,000 terrorists!


27 posted on 10/30/2009 11:01:15 AM PDT by LRoggy (Peter's Son's Business)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 25 | View Replies]

To: Proud2BeRight
Baghdad Bob will lose very badly. It is really shocking that in the most advanced, most powerful, richest, and freeiest country in history of mankind that we have now an administration that lies in such shocking and brazing fashion. However they lie because they can. Why? Because they know that their lies will be covered and supported by 90% of the media, and not only covered and supported but the media will destroy anyone who exposed their lies.

However what these liars and fools do not understand that the truth will always come out and the truth will destroy them. The truth always win at the end.

28 posted on 10/30/2009 11:06:10 AM PDT by jveritas (God Bless our brave troops)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies]

To: LRoggy

Those buffoons in the WH obviously don’t live in the real world. Everyone that has ever seen a product on “sale” that says, “You save...” however much when you buy this product at our store, knows that you don’t really “save” anything. You just don’t spend as much............


29 posted on 10/30/2009 11:09:26 AM PDT by Red Badger (If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 27 | View Replies]

To: jveritas
However what these liars and fools do not understand that the truth will always come out and the truth will destroy them. The truth always win at the end.

Been looking and see more every day.

Great point!

30 posted on 10/30/2009 11:30:33 AM PDT by Looking4Truth (Leave it to some liberal dork to screw things up for the rest of us.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 28 | View Replies]

To: bigbob

Yeah. You can drive through my town and see all the jobs created — ever more closed and empty store fronts, homes in foreclosure, cars repossessed. Stinking liars.


31 posted on 10/30/2009 12:05:21 PM PDT by pabianice
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-31 last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson