Stimulus // Current

Obama hails phony stimulus jobs as faux [Humor]

Scott Ott's Examiner Scrappleface: GDP boon: Obama hails phony stimulus jobs as faux

By: Scott Ott
Examiner Columnist
November 20, 2009

News fairly unbalanced. We report. You decipher.

President Obama on Friday hailed the "amazing growth" in phony stimulus jobs, especially from nonexistent congressional districts, as a "sure sign that we're seeing a make-believe recovery and an encouraging spurt in faux GDP."
Faux gross domestic product usually trails other false economic indicators, the president said, but with projected unemployment plummeting, the federal government's top alleged experts predict ill-founded consumer confidence will bounce back "before the end of the year at the latest, and quite possibly before supper time tonight."

While Republicans and other skeptics have slammed the Obama administration's use of erroneous data to buttress its claims of an economic turnaround, the president said, "It's exactly this kind of data that the American people need to lift their spirits and to divert their attention from the looming collapse of our capitalist system ... which is, of course, not going to happen, as our latest reports demonstrate beyond a shadow of a doubt."

The president criticized his predecessor, George W. Bush, for "offering false hope without the fictitious numbers to back it up."

"My administration provides genuine false hope," Obama said, "and we've offered dubious supporting statistics, giving it a patina of credibility that has an intoxicating effect on those with a cursory knowledge of economics."

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has cautioned against "irrational exuberance about performing due diligence analysis on the administration's numbers," noting that "precision can mitigate against optimism and set up a kind of domino effect, with accuracy leading to caution, thus freezing markets and ultimately hindering the salutary effect that spurious figures can have on Wall Street."

Meanwhile, Democrats in Congress have reacted to the revelation that millions in stimulus cash reportedly generated thousands of jobs in congressional districts that don't exist, by noting that "those congressional districts don't exist ... yet," in the words of Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev. "That doesn't mean they'll never exist. We Democrats see the glass as half full."Scott Ott's Examiner Scrappleface: GDP boon: Obama hails phony stimulus jobs as faux... more

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Made-in-China wind farm on U.S. taxpayer dollars

China knows renewable energy is the economy of the future and is cashing in on it by... more

resolute
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Must be a new jobs program or Dems will pay

Tom Ferguson: The stimulus program was far too small, a much larger one is still needed

therealnewsnetwork
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Would You Re-Elect President Obama One Year Later?

November 18, 2009 CNN (Briefly discusses the Mammogram Panel in the beginning).

Jenime
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Stimulus Jobs Created in Districts that Do Not Exist

Before people start in that this is just a republican made-up story: This is fox news,... more

Jenime
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The Decade, in 7 Minutes

Newsweek has boiled down the the first decade of this millennium into a seven minute... more

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America's Christmas present: Jobs

Now that the House has passed its version of the healthcare bill, Speaker Nancy Pelosi is shifting her focus to jobs. With unemployment in the double digits and not showing any signs of getting any better, Democrats want to show some sort of progress on getting Americans back into the workplace. The hope is to have either a big bill or a package of smaller bills passed in December. How will they create new jobs? Well the House is looking at getting a big highway construction bill moving - but no one seems to know how they would pay for it - which would mean adding to the deficit.

President Obama has called for a summit in December between lawmakers, administration officials, small businesses, chief executives and union representatives to talk about how to get a handle on unemployment. The AFL-CIO has already given a preview of its ideas it'll bring to the summit. For example: Using TARP money to give commercial loans to small businesses and providing healthcare and food assistance for the unemployed.

How successful has the government been at job creation thus far? Recovery .gov, the Administration's site to let citizens track the effects of the stimulus money, has a big number labeled "Jobs Created/Saved as Reported by Recipients": 640,329 (as of 10/30). That's great and all, but by the same home page of the same site about $215B have been spent so far out of the recovery money. Which comes out roughly to $335,000 per job. (That's just me and a calculator and a few rounded-off numbers - I'm sure better estimates exist out there.)

Another side of the math is that if we replicated those 640K jobs that were created over the course of this year there would still be about 10 million Americans unemployed.

Expensive and difficult!

All right, how do you think we could drive unemployment down? Give us your best ideas.

FROM THE BLOG: http://blogs.current.com/news/2009/11/17/americas-christmas-present-jobs/

SOURCES: http://thehill.com/homenews/house/68045-pelosi-switches-to-jobs
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125803687743645333.html
http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idUSN1651501820091117
http://recovery.govNow that the House has passed its version of the healthcare bill, Speaker Nancy Pelosi... more

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Too Little of a Good Thing

Paul Krugman has written about this in his blog fairly often, but until now I haven't... more

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Texas Republicans Raking In Stimulus After Opposing It

Texas Republicans opposed the $787 billion stimulus package, but their districts are... more

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GOP ‘dividing apples by oranges’ to create bogus stimulus figures, AP says

Beware the math. Some Republican lawmakers critical of President Barack Obama's... more

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Obama's stimulus numbers look promising

FROM THE NEWS BLOG:
The Obama Administration has released its first broad report on jobs created or saved by the stimulus program. Focused on $150 billion in spending of the total $787 billion package, the report estimates that around 640,000 jobs have been created or saved nation-wide. The numbers are controversial, with Republicans already claiming that they're a bit to optimistic. But the actual impact of the stimulus dollars has proven difficult to nail down.

The Obama administration continued to maintain that the actual number of jobs created so far is closer to 1 million. The reports did not reflect measures such as tax cuts, boosted unemployment benefits or jobs created indirectly by stimulus spending. A total of $339 billion has been drawn down so far under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

"Every dollar being spent from Recovery Act is helping put someone back to work," said Vice President Joe Biden, citing 80,000 construction jobs and 325,000 education positions created or saved by stimulus funds. "My message today is that we're on track."

Probably the best reporting on the subject out there comes from our friends at ProPublica who have been tracking the stimulus program all year.

We're keeping an eye on jobs and joblessness during the recession, so these numbers are definitely of interest to us. We've seen a few personal stories from users here on Current:
User diabolical44 writes:
"I graduated college with a Bachelors degree in May of 2008. The economy went to complete shit soon there after. Now , almost a year and a half later, I still have no job. I've worked here and there, waiting tables, delivering pizza, packing boxes in a warehouse, but no real job. No career to speak of. No sign of hope either."

Anyone out there gotten work thanks to the stimulus program? Tell us your story.

News Blog post: http://blogs.current.com/news/2009/10/30/obamas-stimulus-numbers-look-promising/
ProPublica's Stimulus coverage: http://www.propublica.org/ion/stimulus
The White House's stimulus page: http://www.recovery.gov/FROM THE NEWS BLOG: The Obama Administration has released its first broad report on... more

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Obama stimulus plan delivers 650,000 jobs; saves economy

Obama stimulus plan delivers 650,000 jobs; saves economy http://bit.ly/1xNJq7... more

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Stimulus jobs overstated by thousands

Oct 29, 8:27 AM (ET) By BRETT J. BLACKLEDGE and MATT APUZZO WASHINGTON (AP) - A... more

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60,000 Teacher Jobs Restored with Stimulus, Educators Say It's Not Enough

60,000 Teacher Jobs Restored with Stimulus, Educators Say It's Not Enough New America... more

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White House Controls Executive Pay

Responding to the growing furor over the paychecks of executives at companies that received billions of dollars in the government’s financial rescue, the Obama administration will order the companies that received the most aid to deeply slash the compensation to their highest paid executives, an official involved in the decision said on Wednesday

Under the plan, which will be announced in the next few days by the Treasury Department, the seven companies that received the most assistance will have to cut the annual salaries of their 25 best-paid executives by an average of about 90 percent from last year. Their total compensation — including bonuses and retirement contributions — will drop, on average, by about 50 percent. The companies are Citigroup [C 4.42 -0.01 (-0.23%) ], Bank of America [BAC 16.51 -0.50 (-2.94%) ], American International Group [AIG 38.96 -1.47 (-3.64%) ], General Motors, Chrysler and the financing arms of the two automakers.

At the financial products division of the insurance giant, A.I.G., the locus of problems that plagued the large insurer and forced its rescue with more than $180 billion in taxpayer assistance, no top executive will receive more than $200,000 in total compensation, a stunning decline from previous years in which the unit produced many wealthy executives and traders.

In contrast to previous years, an official said, executives in the financial products division will receive no other compensation, such as stocks or stock options.

And at all of the companies, any executive seeking more than $25,000 in special perks — such as country club memberships, private planes, limousines or company issued cars — will have to apply to the government for permission. The administration will also warn A.I.G. that it must fulfill a commitment it made to significantly reduce the $198 million in bonuses promised to employees in the financial products division.

The pay restrictions illustrate the humbling downfall of the once proud giants, now wards of the state whose leaders’ compensation is being set by a Washington paymaster.

They also show how Washington in the last year has become increasingly powerful in setting corporate policies as more companies turned to the government for money to survive.

The compensation schedules set by Kenneth R. Feinberg, the special master at Treasury handling compensation issues, comes as many other banks that received smaller but significant taxpayer assistance in the last year have been reporting huge year-end bonuses, setting off a new round of recrimination in Washington about bailout of Wall Street.

Since his appointment last June by Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner, Mr. Feinberg has spent months in negotiations with the companies as he seeks to balance compensation concerns against fears at the companies that any huge restrictions in pay could prompt an exodus of executives. Under a law adopted earlier this year, the Treasury Department was instructed to examine the salaries and bonuses for the five most senior executives and their 20 most highly paid employees at companiResponding to the growing furor over the paychecks of executives at companies that... more

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GOP Reps Don’t Mention The Stimulus When Handing Out Stimulus Funds

Earlier this year, Congress passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) — commonly referred to as the stimulus — without a single Republican vote in the House of Representatives. Since then, a whole host of legislators who opposed the stimulus have jumped at the opportunity to personally deliver stimulus funds to their cash-strapped districts.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that not a single Georgian GOP legislator who voted against ARRA has turned down stimulus funds for their district. The paper notes one congressman, Rep. Jack Kingston (R-GA), has managed to get away with this hypocrisy by hiding the source of the funds he is doling out:

On July 28, Kingston’s office issued news releases announcing $245,187 combined in funding through the federal Office of Community Oriented Policing Services for the Alma and Jesup police departments. The money will pay the salary and benefits for one entry-level police officer for each department for three years, according to Kingston’s news releases, which did not mention the funding was made possible by the federal stimulus program.

“We’ve seen from experience that local initiatives go a lot further toward solving local problems than policies set in Washington,” Kingston said in his release about the funding for Jesup. “This funding will provide tax relief by saving local tax dollars.”

In February, Kingston said the recovery act is “fundamentally flawed and doesn’t represent the change we deserve or the stimulus we need.” His spokesman said Kingston, who remains opposed to the stimulus, routinely announces all types of federal funding for his district without identifying the legislation that created it.

“We are very cautious not to take credit for it in those releases,” Kingston spokesman Chris Crawford said.

Last week, ThinkProgress noted that Kingston’s colleague Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-GA) — another ardent opponent of the stimulus — handed a giant, stimulus-funded check to the city of Cedartown, Georgia to help fund community development projects.

Gingrey — who remains opposed to the Recovery Act — was forced to release this statement explaining his hypocrisy: “If the Democrats are hellbent on spending an astronomical sum of money, it is my job as a member of Congress to see that the communities I represent receive consideration for the federal funds that the Democrats are spending, whether I agreed with its allocation or not.”Earlier this year, Congress passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA)... more

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Is the Stimulus A Failure? also, Can You do Math?

From the moment it passed, the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act—the stimulus bill—has been the subject of controversy. Many critics have deemed it a debacle, since unemployment has continued to rise in the months since its passage. The Republican Party declared the bill a failure over the summer, and House Minority Leader John Boehner recently deemed it a waste: "You can't spend $800 billion of taxpayer money and not create jobs when you say that's what the goal was." At a dinner several weeks ago, I heard a cable news reporter, one whose job is to report numbers accurately, declare that "we've already spent $800 billion and it was a waste." I suppose it's too much to ask political hacks and TV reporters to get the size and timing of the stimulus package right. But I expect better from my colleagues at the Washington Post editorial page, which on Sunday argued against further stimulus measures because they would add to the scary national debt and because "the government still hasn't run through half of the $787 billion in tax cuts and spending increases enacted this year."

To begin with, the stimulus was $787 billion, not $800 billion. (Those of you who think there isn't much of a difference, please make out a check for the difference to Daniel M. Gross.) The more egregious error has to do with the timing. Many critics act as if the entire amount has already been spent. They're completely wrong. Even to argue that it's been half-spent, as the Post, does, is only half-right.

This is not surprising. The ARRA is divided into six different types of components, from tax cuts to infrastructure investments. Some can be done quickly (cutting and mailing tax rebate checks) while others (building bridges) take longer. "The areas where stimulus has been largest in the first six months are individual tax cuts, state fiscal relief, and aid to those most directly hurt by the recession," the CEA reported. Through the end of August, in fact, tax cuts accounted for $62.6 billion of expenditures, and government investment outlays accounted for only $16.5 billion.

In other words, nearly eight months after its passage, a large majority of the stimulus has yet to start impacting the economy—as was the plan. And as was also the plan, the most visible parts of the stimulus are only taking effect now and will remain active through 2010. As you drive around town, it's difficult to visualize tax rebates or aid to states—the fast-acting components of the stimulus. But as I drive around my town today, I can see workers laboring at a $4 million, stimulus-backed road project that is just getting started and will run through the spring of 2011.From the moment it passed, the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment... more