With President Barack Obama today announcing plans to speed up “stimulus” spending this summer in an effort to “save or create” 600,000 jobs, Americans for Tax Reform (ATR) pointed out the following:

 At least 1.5 million jobs have been lost since the signing of the “stimulus”. From the time of Obama’s Feb. 17 signing of the “stimulus” bill, the U.S. has lost at least 1.5 million jobs, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data.
 
Each lost job has cost taxpayers $2,900. According to Recovery.gov, $43.73 billion of the “stimulus” funds have been spent as of May 29. Dividing $43.73 billion by the 1.5 million jobs lost since the signing of the “stimulus” means that taxpayers have ponied up $2,900 per lost job.
 
 There is no honest way to measure the number of “saved” jobs: The Obama-invented metric of a “saved or created” job was best debunked by Senator John Ensign (R-NV) on March 4 while challenging Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner’s use of the term: 
 
SEN. JOHN ENSIGN: "You created a situation where you cannot be wrong. If the economy loses 2 million jobs over the next few years, you can say yes, but it would’ve lost 5.5 million jobs. If we create a million jobs, you can say, well, it would have lost 2.5 million jobs," Ensign said. "You’ve given yourself complete leverage where you cannot be wrong, because you can take any scenario and make yourself look correct."
 
“Stimulus” spending has proven highly questionable thus far. Taxpayers are on the hook for $550,000 to build a skateboard park and renovate basketball and tennis courtsin Pawtucket, Rhode Island; $4,000,000 for the paving of a private jet parking lot in struggling Aspen, Colorado; and $11,400,000 for the National Zoo in Washington, DC.  

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