Follow along with the video below to see how to install our site as a web app on your home screen.
Note: This feature may not be available in some browsers.
Nov. 24 (Bloomberg) -- At first it was just an unverifiable assertion. Now it turns out to have been a case of bureaucratic ineptitude and possible fraud. Transparency and accountability arent working out the way President Barack Obama had hoped.
The administration was already skating on thin ice when it announced on Oct. 30, with great fanfare, that 640,329 jobs had been created or saved as a result of the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
Not 640,000, or even 640,300. Six-hundred-forty-thousand- three-hundred-and-twenty-nine.
Asked about accumulating reports of phony jobs in phantom districts, Obama told Fox Newss Major Garrett that this is an inexact science.
Turned into an exact one by his administration, I might add.
Even Vice President Joe Biden had the good sense to round up to the nearest million, which puts the number of jobs created or saved in line with government and private forecasters estimates for the Recovery Act.
Local newspapers across the country started to notice problems with the, er, jobs. Small stuff, like jobs that werent created and congressional districts that dont exist. You have to admire the consistency.
Watchdog.org, a collection of independent journalists covering state and local government, has put together a Guide to the Stimulus, District by (Phantom) District. Overall the group found that 440 phantom districts in 50 states, the District of Columbia and four U.S. territories received $6.4 billion and created or saved -- lets consolidate to craved -- 30,000 jobs. That works out to $213,333 per job. Think how much easier, not to mention transparent, it would have been to hand out that kind of real money to real people who will spend it!
.
.
.
.
Misplaced Idea
Whats more, it presumes government actions have no equal and offsetting reactions. If the government borrows and spends more today, implying higher taxes down the road, some other entity must spend less, now or in the future. No one can claim to measure what would have happened in the absence of fiscal stimulus.
How many small businesses are holding off on hiring additional employees until they know what additional burdens Congress will impose on them in the name of health-care reform? How are expectations of higher health-care costs affecting consumers current spending, which in turn affects output and employment? (Only in government la-la land can you provide more health care for less money.)
In the face of a 10.2 percent unemployment rate and growing doubt about government claims of jobs created, the administration is standing by its 640,329. After all, Devaney has no doubt that theres a lot of jobs being created. Its just a question of how many.
One million? 640,329? Its close enough to zero for government work.
