Obama’s Economists: ‘Stimulus’ Has Cost $278,000 per Job

[Robert]

How can it be possible not to understand why we are in such dire straights. So whats the next trick of this administration?

Obama

 

[The Rabbi]

Read the fine print and you discover there is no empirical evidence the stimulus created even one job.

 

[Robert]

Read the fine print and you discover there is no empirical evidence the stimulus created even one job.

Agreed..... although we have seen plenty of evidence of millions of jobs being lost. Guess the cost per job just went up.

 

[editec]

How much of that $278,000 went to profits for the owners of the companies that those workers worked for?

Anybody know?

 

[blastoff]

The only shovel-ready part of Barry's stimulus was all the bullshit that had to be cleaned up.

 

[LibocalypseNow]

Only Wall Street has benefited from this President and Democrats' terrible failed policies. $278,000 Per Job?? And the people saying this actually work or worked for this President. So you can bet the real number is much worse. Go ahead and double that $278,000 number. What a sad disaster.

 

[Remodeling Maidiac]

I find it funny how some posts are avoided at all cost by most liberals.

 

[Claudette]

Jesus. $270,000 per job???

They would have been much better off just giving the money back to the taxpayers.

 

[Avorysuds]

If the money was not stolen and wasted we would prolly be out of the recession by now... Instead we have people trying to credit Obama for "saving the US from a Depression on accident," despite the fact that Obama and all his expert economic advisors didn't even see as a possibility before the stimulus.

 

[LibocalypseNow]

Wall Street is back to getting rich so i guess the Hopey Changey Cult thinks that makes everything just fine. But why is Wall Street making all that cash again? The Hopey Changey Cult should think about that a bit. That doesn't mean average Americans are doing well. Poverty is at record high levels. And paying $278,000 per Job really does hurt. It's very sad.

 

[Kuros]

Jesus. $270,000 per job???

They would have been much better off just giving the money back to the taxpayers.

About half the stimulus was tax cuts.

But, if the Stimulus were treated as a jobs program, as it should have been, and it had hired 2.4 million at $1,000/month as Americorps volunteers, the Stimulus only would have cost . . .

$87 billion.

 

[The Rabbi]

Jesus. $270,000 per job???

They would have been much better off just giving the money back to the taxpayers.

About half the stimulus was tax cuts.

But, if the Stimulus were treated as a jobs program, as it should have been, and it had hired 2.4 million at $1,000/month as Americorps volunteers, the Stimulus only would have cost . . .

$87 billion.

Who is going to work for $1k/mo when they can get unemployment insurance for more money?
The CCC was a failure, as well as unconstitutional, btw.

 

[Avorysuds]

Jesus. $270,000 per job???

They would have been much better off just giving the money back to the taxpayers.

About half the stimulus was tax cuts.

But, if the Stimulus were treated as a jobs program, as it should have been, and it had hired 2.4 million at $1,000/month as Americorps volunteers, the Stimulus only would have cost . . .

$87 billion.

Tax cuts or Tax credits, huge difference... Like, they're not even the same thing kind of diffrerence.

 

[DontBeStupid]

Here we go again. Fun with numbers again. You guys seem to think the entire Recovery Act was money sent directly to people in the form of salaries. It wasn't, so dividing the jobs number by the total just gets you some generic jobs/$ spent number, which means pretty much nothing. Not to mention, this is over 2 years, and no one here is even talking about the annual amounts, which would at least be more useful.

Plus, as has already been stated, and was stated in the report, $292B of the Recover Act stimulus was in the form of tax cuts. As has been talked about for years now, tax cuts are a terrible way to stimulate the economy. This is just more proof of that. Had the entire Recovery Act been a jobs programs, the job numbers would have been much better.

All that being said, anyone who claims the Recovery Act was a waste or was a failure is just lying. Two and a half million jobs is not a failure. Getting the economy growing again is not a failure. The only problems with the Recovery Act was the tax cuts and its size. Too many tax cuts and not enough spending.

 

[The Rabbi]

They werent tax cuts. They were tax giveaways. And yes they were terrible. No business plans for 2 years. They plan for like 10-20.

 

[DiamondDave]

Do you get to claim 2.5MIL jobs gained when 4MIL was lost??

The government is the only thing that gets an economy growing??

Too little tax cuts, to little reform to the tax code, and wayyyy too much spending.... you got it all wring, lib

 

[Avorysuds]

Here we go again. Fun with numbers again. You guys seem to think the entire Recovery Act was money sent directly to people in the form of salaries. It wasn't, so dividing the jobs number by the total just gets you some generic jobs/$ spent number, which means pretty much nothing. Not to mention, this is over 2 years, and no one here is even talking about the annual amounts, which would at least be more useful.

Plus, as has already been stated, and was stated in the report, $292B of the Recover Act stimulus was in the form of tax cuts. As has been talked about for years now, tax cuts are a terrible way to stimulate the economy. This is just more proof of that. Had the entire Recovery Act been a jobs programs, the job numbers would have been much better.

All that being said, anyone who claims the Recovery Act was a waste or was a failure is just lying. Two and a half million jobs is not a failure. Getting the economy growing again is not a failure. The only problems with the Recovery Act was the tax cuts and its size. Too many tax cuts and not enough spending.

Tax cuts or tax credits? How is that "having fun with numbers" going for you. The stimulus failed to achieve a single goal it set out to do, that's why "Obama saved us from a depression" became the new slogan.

 

[NYcarbineer]

1. Nice to see the wingnuts conceding that the stimulus did in fact create or save almost 3 million jobs.

2. Keep in mind, the stimulus' cost included almost 300 billion in tax cuts.

 

[DontBeStupid]

Do you get to claim 2.5MIL jobs gained when 4MIL was lost??

The government is the only thing that gets an economy growing??

Too little tax cuts, to little reform to the tax code, and wayyyy too much spending.... you got it all wring, lib

Funny, though, how I can prove my side and my argument and you can't prove yours at all.

 

[Kuros]

Tax cuts, tax credits, tax incentives. There's certainly a difference, but there's a key similarity: they all add to the debt equally.

Here's wiki's rundown.

Tax incentives for individuals
Total: $237 billion

$116 billion: New payroll tax credit of $400 per worker and $800 per couple in 2009 and 2010. Phaseout begins at $75,000 for individuals and $150,000 for joint filers.[28]
$70 billion: Alternative minimum tax: a one year increase in AMT floor to $70,950 for joint filers for 2009.[28]
$15 billion: Expansion of child tax credit: A $1,000 credit to more families (even those that do not make enough money to pay income taxes).
$14 billion: Expanded college credit to provide a $2,500 expanded tax credit for college tuition and related expenses for 2009 and 2010. The credit is phased out for couples making more than $160,000.
$6.6 billion: Homebuyer credit: $8,000 refundable credit for all homes bought between 1/1/2009 and 12/1/2009 and repayment provision repealed for homes purchased in 2009 and held more than three years. This only applies to first-time homebuyers.[40]
$4.7 billion: Excluding from taxation the first $2,400 a person receives in unemployment compensation benefits in 2009.
$4.7 billion: Expanded earned income tax credit to increase the earned income tax credit — which provides money to low income workers — for families with at least three children.
$4.3 billion: Home energy credit to provide an expanded credit to homeowners who make their homes more energy-efficient in 2009 and 2010. Homeowners could recoup 30 percent of the cost up to $1,500 of numerous projects, such as installing energy-efficient windows, doors, furnaces and air conditioners.
$1.7 billion: for deduction of sales tax from car purchases, not interest payments phased out for incomes above $250,000.

Tax incentives for companies
Total: $51 billion

$15 billion: Allowing companies to use current losses to offset profits made in the previous five years, instead of two, making them eligible for tax refunds.
$13 billion: to extend tax credits for renewable energy production (until 2014).
$11 billion: Government contractors: Repeal a law that takes effect in 2012, requiring government agencies to withhold three percent of payments to contractors to help ensure they pay their tax bills. Repealing the law would cost $11 billion over 10 years, in part because the government could not earn interest by holding the money throughout the year.
$7 billion: Repeal bank credit: Repeal a Treasury provision that allowed firms that buy money-losing banks to use more of the losses as tax credits to offset the profits of the merged banks for tax purposes. The change would increase taxes on the merged banks by $7 billion over 10 years.
$5 billion: Bonus depreciation which extends a provision allowing businesses buying equipment such as computers to speed up its depreciation through 2009.

The $51 billion in tax incentives for companies were all terrible, as Rabbi suggests, but this was less than 20% of the full figure.

The wasteful homebuyer/home energy/car purchase incentives only total to $12.6 billion (CARS aka Cash for Clunkers wasn't part of the ARRA). Less than 5%.

So 40% of the $288 billion in tax incentive provisions was the $116 billion payroll tax credit. This is certainly wasteful. The credit is placed on the taxpayer side, so there's no encouragement for businesses to retain/hire employees. It would have been better to apply that $116 billion to food stamps or unemployment programs.

All that being said, anyone who claims the Recovery Act was a waste or was a failure is just lying. Two and a half million jobs is not a failure.

So you don't just disagree with us, you're accusing us of bad faith? Two and a half million jobs at $666 billion is a massive failure when the Republic faces a $14 trillion debt.