Say Anything Blog

But…The One told us his economic stimulus spending spree would create (or save!) 3 million jobs!  In fact, his latest promises have gone as high as 4 million jobs!

Yet Senator Kent Conrad says Obama’s economic stimulus is only likely to create about half those jobs.  Oh, and any mention of tax cuts has to go.  Because heaven forbid we just give people some of their money back.

Jan. 16 (Bloomberg)—The head of the Senate Budget Committee said he doubts President-elect Barack Obama’s $825 billion economic stimulus package will create as many jobs as promised because it won’t do enough to unlock credit markets.

Senator Kent Conrad, a North Dakota Democrat, said his committee projects the plan will reduce the unemployment rate by “maybe” 1 percent, or about half of the 3 million jobs Obama has said the plan would generate.

While the stimulus plan is about the right size, the proposed $140 billion payroll tax cut is “not a particularly good idea” because it won’t do enough to boost consumer spending, Conrad said in an interview with Bloomberg Television’s “Political Capital with Al Hunt,” scheduled for broadcast today.

Even so, Conrad said it’s “critical” that lawmakers press ahead with the stimulus, in the face of record deficits, to avoid “a second Depression.” The Senate, therefore, is likely to go along with the payroll tax provision, he said.

So Conrad doesn’t think the “economic stimulus” spending spree Obama has proposed will be even half as effective as Obama says it will be, but we should press ahead with it anyway.  No matter that even if that spending did create 4,000,000 new jobs (or save them) it’d cost taxpayers roughly $193,750.00/job.  If this spending spree is as effective as Kent Conrad thinks it will be, those jobs will cost us $387,500.00/job.

Not exactly a bargain, is it?  And Conrad is self-declared “budget hawk.”  I don’t think we can afford much more of Conrad’s hawkishness.

But what’s ironic is that when President Bush was busy increasing government spending (not a good thing) at a slower rate than Obama is now proposing, Conrad wasn’t supportive.  He was apoplectic, suggesting that we couldn’t afford all that deficit spending:

“It is telling that President Bush didn’t even bother to print copies of his final budget.  Perhaps he just ran out of red ink.

“We’ve seen this script before.  The President proposes more of the same failed fiscal policies he has embraced throughout his time in office – more deficit-financed war spending, more deficit-financed tax cuts tilted to benefit the wealthiest, and more borrowing from foreign nations like China and Japan.  The result can only be the same – a further explosion of debt and the undermining of our nation’s economic security.

So…Bush’s deficit spending was bad, but Obama’s is good?

Who knew that fiscal principles were variable depending on which party is doing the spending.

Conrad’s a hack.  Why anyone takes him seriously is beyond me.