"Stimulus" Fact of the Day: Told You So - “Saved or Created Jobs” Claim Can’t Be Substantiated

This would be the second post for today in which we can say: "Told you so!"

No promise from President Barack Obama is more important to the wounded economy than his vow to save or create some 3.5 million jobs in two years. In support of that bottom line, the government even tells states how many jobs they can expect to see from the spending and tax cuts.

 

But precise trajectories are impossible to plot and even approximations can be wildly off, as the authors of these forecasts acknowledge, usually more readily than the policymakers who use them to promote the plan.

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. You've given yourself complete leverage where you cannot be wrong, because you can take any scenario and make yourself look correct.

A joint press release from Montana Sens. Max Baucus and Jon Tester claimed that $1.3 million in federal recovery funding would create 40 new jobs for the Flathead City-County Heath Department.

 

However the actual employment plans at the Flathead Community Health Center – adding only two more jobs during the next fiscal year – paint a different picture. Both Senators’ offices attributed the jobs claims to the Administration, and could not elaborate on how these employment estimates were generated.

It’s about time the establishment press realizes that all this talk about ‘jobs saved or created’ is bogus. The AP story hits the nail on the head when it says that ‘if space exploration were conducted like the job forecasts under the government’s new stimulus law, man surely would have missed the moon.’ Absolutely they would have!

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