Rough Estimate: “Stimulus” Jobs Costing Taxpayers $160,000 Each

Proof • November 2, 2009

That’s almost as good a deal as the $4,500 “cash for clunkers” subsidies that cost taxpayers $24,000 each.

Ed DeSeve, senior advisor to the president for Recovery Act implementation, said he’d been “scrubbing” the job estimates so much since they came it at the beginning of the month that he now has “dishpan hands and my fingers are worn to the nub.”
White House officials heralded the unparalleled transparency in reporting job numbers to the public, but acknowledged there is no consistent standard across states or localities, or among federal agencies giving out stimulus funds, in differentiating between a “saved” job and a “created” job.
The White House argues that the actual job number is actually larger than 640,000 — closer to 1 million jobs when one factors in stimulus jobs added in October and, more importantly, jobs created indirectly, such as “the waitress who’s still on the job,” Vice President Biden said today.
So let’s see. Assuming their number is right — 160 billion divided by 1 million. Does that mean the stimulus costs taxpayers $160,000 per job?
Jared Bernstein, chief economist and senior economic advisor to the vice president, called that “calculator abuse.”
He said the cost per job was actually $92,000…

So, we’re supposed to think that $92,000 per job is a better deal?
And what happens to all these jobs “created or saved” once the government spending dries up? What happens when the government is faced with having to pay back all the money it borrowed from our international creditors to engage in this “stimulus” spending?
Tough questions the Obama administration apparently doesn’t have good answers for.

Tags: Asshats, Domestic Issues, Politics

http://Array sayanything-7715

When will these socialistic fools learn you cannot buy prosperity. Buying a job by taking money from someone (taxpayers) is like feeding a man a fish to live today. You still have to feed him tomorrow. Creating a job from real demand for his job is like teaching a man to fish so he can feed himself tomorrow.
robert108

They’re trying to create the illusion of prosperity, Rob. None of their spending creates any value or real growth. It’s just more Marxist smoke and mirrors.

You can’t buy prosperity; it’s the result of putting private capital at risk to produce a profit. Prosperity is the result of profits. This administration hates profits, and wants to eliminate them in the provate sector.
sayanything-12

Rob:

Carrick, the 1 million jobs number was pulled out of the air by obama’s people

I understand your point, but that number has no basis in anything other than in Obama’s desire to nearly double the (admittedly lame) effect of his stimulus bill on jobs. This desire in turn is driven by his economic ignorance of how jobs get created and destroyed, and why current unemployment numbers (which reflect employment decisions made as long as 6 months ago) aren’t even what you want to to focus on if you want to measure the effect of stimulus spending (6 months ago only maybe 7% of the money had been spent).

It’s a complex evolving system, with Obama’s spending likely to have an unpredictable and difficult to measure effect on the overall system. On that basis alone, it’s a thoroughly stupid idea. For me that’s the bottom line.
sayanything-9974

You must realize that they consider us to stupid to understand. They just haven’t “dumm’d” down enough people yet. If the NEA and other Dem/Libs groups continue as planned, everthing will make perfect sense. We can all drink the Kool aid and forget about all that uther stuph. Reading, wRiting and aRithmetic can be replaced with indoctrination and learning songs to honor the “Dear Leader”. I don’t want an idiocracy, Give me Liberty or Give me Death.
sayanything-12

According to their website they’ve spent $84 billion on tax cuts, $52 billion on rebates and $71 billion on entitlements and saved 640,000 jobs. That’s their official number, not some pulled-out-of-the-air 1,000,000.

That works out closer to $323,000/job saved.

You may argue that the entitlement spending shouldn’t be part of it…after all most of that is paying people to not work…sort of like anti-job spending. But if you don’t use that, you get $212,000/job saved.

The next thing to ask them is what the average salary of the people who’s jobs were saved. I’d guess it’s far less than $212k.
sayanything-4808

That is entirely what they do not want to do. Liberalism appeals to a large and growing group in western society, those who see all things as outside of themselves and nothing from within. Utterly insecure, completely dependent on external signs of justification for their very existence, that which indefinitely and better yet perpetually requires them, gives them nearly endless reason for being.

Liberals see it like this, and it scares them. You MUST understand this. “If you give a man a fish, you feed him for one night. If you teach a man to fish, he won’t need you anymore.”

They need to be needed. It’s not our fault that they don’t feel this already, that their sense of appreciation by others is muted by their neurotic doubt, but we are nonetheless going to suffer for it because none of us want to be politicians, and they want to desperately, and we’re compassionate…

As a society we need to understand why the old saying is so true that the last person you should trust with power is the one who wants it.
sayanything-6955

Tough questions the obama administration doesn’t have answers for? Hell they would just lie anyway.
sayanything-101

How can I get one of those $160,000 gravy train jobs?
http://sayanythingblog.com robport

Sure. I just wanted to be clear that it wasn’t a number I was pulling out of the air. It came from Obama’s people.
sayanything-1641

That’s if you take The One’s word that 1 million jobs were created or saved. If you think the number was a lot smaller, than the cost of each job could be $1/4 million or more.
http://sayanythingblog.com robport

Carrick, the 1 million jobs number was pulled out of the air by obama’s people. Tappper was using it in the article for arguments sake. Even using the administration’s best numbers the cost is still ridiculous.
sayanything-4808

At the average income level in America, it would take HOW many years for a person to cover the cost of their job with that job’s income? More than three years if they put every dime to it. Much much longer if they used any real portion of that income to support themselves.

Obviously, they aren’t doing any such things. So the cost is inherently being spread unequally, and this is in direct conflict with the liberals’ refrain of fairness.

As if everything they did wasn’t diametrically opposed to the simple direct meaning of the words they use.
http://sayanythingblog.com robport

I don’t think they’re really trying to buy prosperity so much as they’re just using any excuse possible to accumulate more power for themselves.
http://sayanythingblog.com robport

Oh they don’t get paid that much. That’s just how much it costs to create or save the job.

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Rough Estimate: “Stimulus” Jobs Costing Taxpayers $160,000 Each

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