follow the tax dollars and you'll find criminals with sizable bank accounts
On Jan 12, 10:05 am, JSM <[email protected]> wrote: > On February 11th, President Barack Obama stood on a windy hilltop in front > of a dusty construction site in Fairfax County, Virginia, and promised the > American > people<http://paracom.paramountcommunication.com/ct/3810919:5593235494:m:1:1...>: > "Here in Virginia, my plan will create or save almost 100,000 jobs, doing > work at sites just like this one." Standing alongside current Democratic > National Committee Chairman and former-Gov. Tim Kaine, the President > continued: "Where we're standing, that could mean hundreds of construction > jobs. And the benefits of jobs we create directly will multiply across the > economy." Eleven months later, none of those promised jobs have been > "created or saved." In fact, the Obama administration quietly > announced<http://paracom.paramountcommunication.com/ct/3810920:5593235494:m:1:1...>last > week that they were dropping the fraudulent "saved or created" > terminology altogether. > > The failure of Obama's $787 billion stimulus is particularly acute in > Virginia where, as Heritage fellow Ron Utt has > documented<http://paracom.paramountcommunication.com/ct/3810921:5593235494:m:1:1...>, > despite $695 million in allocated infrastructure funding, only 16% of > designated projects had begun. House Transportation and Infrastructure > Committee Chairman James Oberstar (D-MN) even publicly complained about > Virginia's slow transportation spending, writing to Gov. Kaine: "your state > ranks last among all states [51 out of 51, including the District of > Columbia], based on an analysis of the percentage of Recovery Act highway > formula funds put out to bid, under contract and under way." > > But even where infrastructure spending has been spent, the hard evidence > shows that there has not been any positive effect on unemployment. According > to an Associated Press > analysis<http://paracom.paramountcommunication.com/ct/3810922:5593235494:m:1:1...>reviewed > by independent economists at five universities, the $20 billion > spent nationwide on infrastructure so far "has had no effect on local > unemployment rates." And this was just the most recent embarrassing headline > for the White House's signature economic policy. Since the first reporting > deadline in October, newspapers and other media outlets across the country > have identified 94,341 fake jobs reported by the Obama administration as > jobs "created or saved" by the stimulus. After the Government Accountability > Office issued a > report<http://paracom.paramountcommunication.com/ct/3810923:5593235494:m:1:1...>finding > "significant reporting and processing problems that need to be > addressed," Obama administration spokesman Ed Pound > offered<http://paracom.paramountcommunication.com/ct/3810924:5593235494:m:1:1...>this > defense of the Obama administration's jobs numbers: "Who knows, man, > who really knows." > > Now Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag issued a > little-noticed > memo<http://paracom.paramountcommunication.com/ct/3810925:5593235494:m:1:1...>last > month ending the "saved or created" metric and instead directing > agencies to count only jobs "funded" by stimulus dollars. But as Harvard > University labor economist Lawrence Katz tells > ProPublica<http://paracom.paramountcommunication.com/ct/3810920:5593235494:m:1:1...>, > this is not really an improvement: "I just think it’s a silly exercise." > Instead Katz > says<http://paracom.paramountcommunication.com/ct/3810920:5593235494:m:1:1...>a > more accurate way to account for the effect of the stimulus is to look > at > the unemployment numbers put out by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. > > That is a great > idea<http://paracom.paramountcommunication.com/ct/3810926:5593235494:m:1:1...>. > The latest BLS > report<http://paracom.paramountcommunication.com/ct/3810927:5593235494:m:1:1...>issued > last Friday found that the U.S. economy dropped 85,000 jobs in > December, bringing the jobs lost total to 2.7 million since the stimulus was > passed and 3.4 million since Obama became > President<http://paracom.paramountcommunication.com/ct/3810928:5593235494:m:1:1...>. > In contrast, the President's White House Council of Economic Advisers had > promised total employment of at least 138.6 million by 2010. Actual > employment as of December was reported to be 130.9 million, leaving the > Obama jobs deficit at 7.7 > million<http://paracom.paramountcommunication.com/ct/3810928:5593235494:m:1:1...> > . > > The problem with infrastructure spending as stimulus, and really government > spending as stimulus, is that Congress does not have a vault of money > waiting to be distributed. Every dollar Congress injects into the economy > must first be taxed or borrowed out of the economy. No new spending power is > created. It is merely redistributed from one group of people to another. > Businesses are telling > pollsters<http://paracom.paramountcommunication.com/ct/3810929:5593235494:m:1:1...>that > among the biggest reasons they are not creating jobs is the prospect > of > new tax and regulatory burdens. A better > solution<http://paracom.paramountcommunication.com/ct/3810930:5593235494:m:1:1...>to > reduce unemployment is to simplify and reduce the barriers to business > success.
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