Stimulus Plan Works ! ! And costs Texans only $545,000.00 per job saved ! !

Don't even bother reading this rant. It's just a collection of links that I want for future reference.



From Darren Barbee and Aman Batheja, writing in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram:

Texas gained 19,572 jobs created or saved by federal stimulus funds, at a steep cost to taxpayers: $545,000 per job, according to data from a new but flawed government report.
The information, available on recovery.gov, shows that 376 contracts worth $608.9 million created 1,458 jobs. Grants totaling $10 billion contributed 18,114 more.
Administration officials argued that it was "calculator abuse" to figure the cost per job because many contracts haven’t been completed so additional people could be hired....

So we can now pile "calculator abuse" onto the mound of logic abuse that was required to pass the Porkulus bill. Are calculators members of a protected category in the new Hate Crimes Legislation? Just wondering.....

....A company called Affiliated Western received a $2.6 million contract to repair hangar doors. Total jobs created: a single position. Or two, since an interactive map on recovery.gov counted the contract twice.
The city of Arlington reported that $853,342 in stimulus money for "new pedestrian infrastructure" — a sidewalk — and a van service would create 130 jobs. Though the city reports that the project is less than 50 percent completed, it claims that 100 of those jobs would come from providing more transportation options to low-income residents.

Let's go back to basics here. Look at what you pay in taxes. That's money that you can't spend on something else. Look at the $2.6 million that the government printed to create two garage doors. That's money pumped into our system that dilutes the buying power of the money already in your wallet.
What they're doing is preventing you from spending your money on your preferred purchases, and giving it to their supporters.
Does anyone doubt that Affiliated Western, who got $2.6 million in porkulus, is now a huge financial supporter of whichever legal whore wrote them into the porkulus bill?

In another case, Tarrant County got credit for a contract awarded to B.W. Strayhorn of Wichita Falls worth $2,559,791. But zero jobs were created or saved, according to recovery.gov. The contract calls for the company to conduct embankment repairs at Bardwell Dam and shoreline erosion repair at Lavonia Park and Lavon Lake.

Which brings up another issue....How in the hell can someone directly credit, or not credit, this stimulus money for saving a job? Jobs are being lost by the tens of thousands because investors are worried about which insane card checking/earth saving/wealth transferring/red taping/productivity penalizing scheme that our Spreadsheet Messiahs are going to roll out next.

Here's The Gay Patriot:

Last week alone, more Californians filed for jobless benefits for the first time than the number of jobs created by the “stimulus” since it passed nearly nine months ago. The Golden State had largest increase in claims for benefits (of any state) with 5,774 citizens asking for government help after being laid off (H/t Instapundit).
According to recovery.gov, the “so-called stimulus” created (or saved) 2,260 jobs in the Golden State since the President signed the bill in February. At that time, the Golden State’s junior Senator, Barbara Boxer, heralded Senate passage of the legislation, promising it would “put Californians to work“.
Hey, Ma’am, it doesn’t seem to be putting Californians to work. You said, “This bill will put Californians to work now building the highways, bridges, transit and rail systems, and renewable energy sources of the 21st century.” The data show layoffs “in the construction, services and agricultural industries.” So, maybe 2,260 Californians are building bridges for the state. 5,774 fewer are building other things (or otherwise engaging in productive and remunerative activities).
Let me repeat: More than twice as many Californians lost their jobs in just one week in October than the number of Californians put to work by the “stimulus.”

So please, please, please, please, please..... Can all government busybodies, saviors, messiahs, and earnest hand-wringers call in sick for the next year? We'll get through this thing just fine if you promise to do so. Please. Think of the children.

Here's Caroline Baum, of Bloomberg.org:

....the government has no money of its own to spend; only what it borrows or confiscates from us via taxation. Oops.
“Government job creation is an oxymoron,” said Bill Dunkelberg, chief economist at the National Federation of Independent Business. It is only by depriving the private sector of funds that government can hire or subsidize hiring.
That’s why “jobs created or saved” is such pure fiction. It ignores what’s unseen, as our old friend Frederic Bastiat explained so eloquently 160 years ago in an essay.

Lordy. Even CBS News is calling bullshint on this mess.



I got most of these links from Instapundit.