30,000 jobs … a trillion dollars and we get 30,000 jobs UPDATE: Errors

OK … I know its $787 billion  … but its debt and any good home economist says the true cost includes the interest … but I digress.

Remember when Joe Biden said this?

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBHPvfAt5ow

Well, apparently in this administration it is a four letter word they try to avoid. From the Hill … but then don’t say we didn’t tell you so in February.

The first direct stimulus reports showed that stimulus contracts saved or created just 30,083 jobs, prompting more Republican criticism of the$787 billion package.

The data posted Thursday was the result of the government’s initial attempt at counting actual stimulus jobs. Obama administration officials stressed that data was partial — it represented just $16 billion out of the $339 billion awarded — but they said it exceeded their projections.

So the numbers are small because it just counted a portion of the dough that has already been distributed. Fair enough. If I am calculating correctly, extrapolate and you get 600,000 jobs for $339 billion … such a deal.

When the deal is done next year that would indeed come to more than a million jobs over a two year period. Plus remember most of this stimulus money went to maintaining state or city employment. If the money doesn’t continue to flow from taxpayers … those jobs disappear. Period.

Finally the Republicans remind us of this:

But the preliminary raw data stoked more stimulus criticism from GOP lawmakers. Republicans pointed to the reports and the current 9.8 percent jobless rate, the highest in 26 years, to charge that the stimulus had failed.

Aides to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) noted that nearly 3.4 million jobs have been lost since the stimulus was passed in February. They also dug up quotes by President Obama, Biden and their economists in which they predicted that the stimulus would save or create 3 to 4 million jobs.

Perhaps time to listen one more time to the Vice President:

Exit question: Does he even hear himself?

Addendum: Don’t know why I am adding this but … I do have a certain amount of respect for the guy. His son has just returned from Iraq and I agree with Bates, Brooks, McCarthy and Peters … Biden urging a return to counter terrorism in Afghanistan is the right plan. But in this case … he’s just another politician putting lipstick on a pig.

UPDATE: Michelle Malkin has some analysis from Heritage. As she says, error palooza.

OMB Watch said its review yielded “really weird job numbers,” including many discrepancies within the reports themselves. For instance, Jennings said OMB Watch found that many companies said in a narrative portion of their reports that it was able to retain several employees because of stimulus funds, but the “jobs created” column read “zero.”

The Recovery Board aggregates its jobs data from the “jobs created” column to display the total number of jobs saved or created. Jennings speculated that recipients might have been confused about the scope of the term “created.”

“I would not stake any sort of claims on those job numbers,” said Jennings. “We don’t know what’s going on there.”

Geeze.

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Jim Vicevich

Jim is a veteran broadcaster and conservative/libertarian blogger with more than 25 years experience in TV and radio. Jim's was the long-term host of The Jim Vicevich Show on WTIC 1080 in Hartford from 2004 through 2019. Prior to radio, Jim worked as a business and financial reporter for NBC30 - the NBC owned TV station in Hartford - and as business editor at WFSB-TV in Hartford for 14 years while earning six Emmy nominations and three Telly Awards.

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