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Title: GOP ‘Dividing Apples By Oranges’ To Create Bogus Stimulus Figures, AP Says
Source:
Associated Press
URL Source: [None]
Published: Nov 2, 2009
Author: Associated Press
Post Date: 2009-11-02 11:24:40 by Brian S
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Keywords: None
Views: 271
Comments: 3
Monday, November 2nd, 2009 -- 8:14 am WASHINGTON — Beware the math. Some Republican lawmakers critical of President Barack Obama's stimulus package are using grade-school arithmetic to size up costs and consequences of all that spending. The math is satisfyingly simple but highly misleading. It goes like this: Divide the stimulus money spent so far by the estimated number of jobs saved or created. That produces a rather frightening figure on how much money taxpayers are spending for each job. On Friday, the White House released estimates that $160 billion in stimulus spending created or preserved 650,000 direct jobs. By the critics' calculations, that's over $246,000 a job – and a terrible deal for taxpayers. Why spend nearly $250,000 to employ a highway worker or a teacher making a small fraction of that? The reality is more complex. First, the naysayers' calculations ignore the value of the work produced. Any cost-per-job figure pays not just for the worker, but for material, supplies and that worker's output – a portion of a road paved, patients treated in a health clinic, goods shipped from a factory floor, railroad tracks laid. Second, critics are counting the total cost of contracts that will fuel work for months or years and dividing that by the number of jobs produced only to date.
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#1. To: Brian S, *Leftwing Loon Alert* (#0)
Dear Poster Thank you for taking the time and effort to post this article. It is posters like you that have helped to make this forum the success it is. All the best to you and your family this Christmas season! The management team.
First, the naysayers' calculations ignore the value of the work produced. Second, the administration ignores the jobs destroyed by a higher debt burden.
Fish and vegetable meals will save wheat, meat, and fats for our soldiers and allies.
How is "the reality" more complex? The stimulus is supposed to create jobs. That is what Obama, Pelosi, Reid, and the others told us. If $800B only produces 800 jobs, then the cost to create each job was $1B. The cost of goods or materials is irrelevant. If AP wants to claim otherwise, then there are their estimates and figures? Right, they don't have any because they're carrying water for a spending orgy. This isn't rocket science and the AP should know better. AP should just be saying that the American People were sold a bill of goods.
COMRADE! Why are you not showing your Party affiliation and showing proper respect for Dear Leader? Put your Barackstika armband on RIGHT NOW!
#2. To: Brian S (#0)
The reality is more complex.
#3. To: Brian S (#0)
The reality is more complex.
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