Was Goal of Economic Stimulus a Payoff for Democrats, Supporters? (ContributorNetwork)

COMMENTARY | Critics of President Barack Obama's nearly $900 billion stimulus package consider it a failure, the equivalent of burning the money in a bonfire for all the effect it has had on the American economy. Now the president's Council of Economic Advisers agrees.

It has been claimed that the stimulus "created or saved" 2.4 million jobs. According to the Weekly Standard, the report suggests that every job "saved or created" by the stimulus cost $278,000. That means the government could have come out ahead if it just cut checks for $100,000 and distributed them to the unemployed.

The report also suggests that the economy would have "created or saved" jobs even without the stimulus. Furthermore, the stimulus is now having the reverse effect over the past six months, shedding jobs as the stimulus money runs out.

Here are some sobering statistics that demonstrate the ultimate effects of the stimulus:

* Unemployment rate before the stimulus: 7.3 percent

* Unemployment rate after the stimulus: 9.1 percent (It was supposed to keep the unemployment rate below 8 percent.)

* National debt before the stimulus: $9.986 trillion

* National debt after the stimulus: $14.467 trillion (and rising)

In theory, if the stimulus money had actually been spent on infrastructure, such as roads and bridges, and technology development, there might have been a lasting economic effect. Unfortunately the stimulus money was spent on every pork barrel project imaginable, as well as giveaways to the labor unions. A lot of the money went to states with profligate spending practices to pay the salaries of bureaucrats who also happened to be members of public sector unions (political supporters of the president and his party in Congress).

In effect, the stimulus package was the greatest robbery in the history of civilization, fleecing the American taxpayers and using the money to pay off congressional Democrats and their supporters. It suggests that the Obama administration not only had no notion of how to stimulate the economy but actually had no care to do so. The stimulus should be seen as graft and corruption on an epic scale, done in the guise of economic stimulus.

How is that hope and change thing working out for you?

Source:Obama's Economists: 'Stimulus' Has Cost $278,000 per Job, Jeffrey H. Anderson, The Weekly Standard, July 5. 2011

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Senate Democrats seek new economic stimulus (Reuters)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Democrats in the Senate on Wednesday called on Vice President Joe Biden to include new economic stimulus spending in deficit-reduction talks as a way of lowering the 9.1 percent jobless rate that is hobbling the economic recovery.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid made the proposal to the White House, Richard Durbin, the No. 2 Democratic senator, told reporters.

"The Republicans are fixating on the budget deficit and it's a serious problem," Durbin said.

But citing the conclusions of a presidential deficit-cutting commission that he served on last year, Durbin added, "Get the recovery right before you get in this deficit cutting mode ... get people back to work. Let's start moving in that direction."

A senior Democratic aide said the job-creation idea Senate Democrats are now pursuing represented a pivot in the deficit-reduction negotiations.

He said the idea presented to the White House has three components to help create jobs: new infrastructure spending, a payroll tax cut and support for clean energy jobs.

He did not say how large the infrastructure spending proposal would be. In 2009, President Barack Obama won enactment of an $814 billion economic stimulus that Republicans opposed as wasteful spending.

The aide said the White House appeared to support extending the current payroll tax cut for employees, although there has been discussion on Capitol Hill of also expanding that tax cut to employers.

Biden is to return to the Senate on Wednesday for another meeting with the bipartisan group of lawmakers looking for ways to significantly reduce deficits. A deep cut in spending -- in the neighborhood of $4 trillion over a decade -- is a Republican requirement for allowing a vote to increase U.S. borrowing authority that is hitting up against a $14.3 trillion limit.

The group is facing an August 2 deadline for resolving the debt limit problem and thinks that it needs to make some decisions within the next few days in order to give the Senate and House of Representatives enough time to write and pass spending cut and debt limit legislation.

Durbin told reporters he thought that effort could become a "two-step" process containing a "serious down payment on the deficit" followed by more work on long-term savings.

"We're just not going to be able to accomplish (all of) it by August 2," Durbin said.

The Biden group has aimed to raise borrowing authority by enough to get through 2012 and next year's presidential and congressional elections.

"I hope Vice President Biden can get an agreement that takes us through the election. I don't know if he can," Durbin said.

(Editing by Jackie Frank)

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