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