Tick, tick. August 2nd is the Debt Limit Armageddon. Or Not.

georgeob, Your response is extreme! 60% taxation?

Did the Stimulus Create Jobs?
Yes, the stimulus legislation increased employment, despite false Republican claims to the contrary.

September 27, 2010
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Summary

The economic stimulus package is a favorite target of Republican candidates and groups, but more than a few ads falsely claim it did not create or save any jobs. Some recent examples:

Republican House candidate Dan Debicella charges that Democratic Rep. Jim Himes failed Connecticut’s families because he voted for a "stimulus package that has done nothing to reduce unemployment."
Rick Scott, the Republican candidate for governor in Florida, says Democrat Alex Sink "backed the failed stimulus bill, which created debt, not jobs."
Similarly, Sink — who never served in Congress and didn’t vote on the bill — is attacked by the Republican Party of Florida in an ad that says the stimulus "gave us big debt and no jobs."
Americans for Prosperity, a conservative group that does not have to disclose its donors, aired an ad against Democratic congressional candidate Denny Heck of Washington that claimed the "$787 billion stimulus … failed to save and create jobs." The group has launched similar ads against other Democrats.
Kristi Noem, a Republican House candidate from South Dakota, calls the measure a "jobless stimulus."

The truth is that the stimulus increased employment by between 1.4 million and 3.3 million people, compared with what employment would have been otherwise. That’s according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.
Analysis

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, more commonly known as the stimulus bill, has been featured in more than 130 TV ads this year, according to a database maintained by Kantar Media’s Campaign Media Analysis Group. In many of those ads, Republicans claim the bill has "failed" (a matter of opinion) or state (correctly) that unemployment has gone up since President Barack Obama signed the bill into law on Feb. 17, 2009. The national unemployment rate was 8.2 percent in February 2009, and it now stands at 9.6 percent, having peaked at 10.1 percent in October 2009.

But it’s just false to say that the stimulus created "no jobs" or "failed to save and create jobs" or "has done nothing to reduce unemployment" – or similar claims that the stimulus did not produce any jobs.

As we have written before, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office released a report in August that said the stimulus bill has "[l]owered the unemployment rate by between 0.7 percentage points and 1.8 percentage points" and "ncreased the number of people employed by between 1.4 million and 3.3 million."

Simply put, more people would be unemployed if not for the stimulus bill. The exact number of jobs created and saved is difficult to estimate, but nonpartisan economists say there’s no doubt that the number is positive.

ncreased the number of people employed by between 1.4 million and 3.3 million."

Simply put, more people would be unemployed if not for the stimulus bill. The exact number of jobs created and saved is difficult to estimate, but nonpartisan economists say there’s no doubt that the number is positive.

I am frankly surprised that you didn't notice that the much touted "stimulus" of two years ago didn't produce any jobs outside of government.

Quote:

ncreased the number of people employed by between 1.4 million and 3.3 million."

Simply put, more people would be unemployed if not for the stimulus bill. The exact number of jobs created and saved is difficult to estimate, but nonpartisan economists say there’s no doubt that the number is positive.

So $787 billion was spent not including TARP or the auto bailout which works out to $395,000 per job if you assume 2 million jobs, and you are trying to argue that we got value for our money??!! What if we had done a WPA program and paid min wage or slightly better, lets say paid each citizen $25 k a year to do something worthwhile and had on overhead of 10% for a final cost of $27,500?? per year?? Wouldn't that have been a lot better from an efficiency and fairness perspective??

You are assuming that any new job that opened in the last few years was necessarily a result of the stimulus.

I am frankly surprised that you didn't notice that the much touted "stimulus" of two years ago didn't produce any jobs outside of government.

Your graph above is a bit deceptive in its presentation. The scale shows a range of 500,000 for a total government employment of more than 22,500,000 = less than 2.5% of the total. Most of the change illustrated had to do with the build up to and decline following the last census.

You assert that "most economists agree", but don't say who and don't specify just what it is they agree on.

Any bets on the next election?

As I've said many times before, health care costs must be controlled through adjustments in age for retirement and when Medicare benefits kick in.

National Republican Congressional Committee

National Republican Congressional Committee

Stimulus bought more than jobs
Says U.S. Rep. Ron Kind’s "stimulus cost taxpayers $278,000 per job."

False

However, in a break from your norm, you are 100% correct that a WPA style jobs program should have happened and still should happen. It would have been far more effective for less money.

....None of these objectives were met or are even a trajectory to be met. Libs have conveniently forgotten about this and instead focused on the sparce jobs that were "created or saved". For some reason conservatives haven't hammered the point home either, but I expect they will when Obama starts running on this particular "achievement" of his Administration...... it would have been a better use of the money to create a WPA jobs program or simply to write a $50K check to each of the 14M currently unemployed.

After that we can talk about the appropriate level of taxation - something well below 20% of GDP.