Chestwader Alert: Another Created or Saved Jobs Report

Much like the tales of the fish that got away, you'll need your chestwaders to slog through the muck in the latest fairy tale report on the wonders of that trillion dollar stimulus:

“The Recovery Act appears to be stimulating private investment and job creation at a time when the economy needs it most,” Christina Romer, chairwoman of the Council of Economic Advisers, said in testimony prepared for a hearing of Congress’s Joint Economic Committee.

Romer cited the Build America Bond program, which has subsidized interest costs for about $118 billion of local government securities sold to finance public-works projects, and tax credits for companies that invest in plants to build solar panels and wind turbines.

The report says the stimulus has “saved or created” about 3 million jobs, and is moving toward a goal of 3.5 million jobs by the end of the year, according to an administration official speaking on condition of anonymity before the report’s release today.

The Obama administration has been stepping up its efforts to defend the $862 billion stimulus measure passed by Congress soon after Obama took office, as the U.S. economy struggles to recover from the worst recession since the 1930s.

THREE MILLION JOBS? No, not really according to Veronique de Rugy:

As it turns out, when you unpack the numbers, you find that Romer and her team didn’t actually count how many people got a job thanks to the stimulus. Instead, the number is a projection that relies on the myth that a dollar of government spending creates up to 2.5 dollars of economic growth.

That’s strange. Robert Barro of Harvard University has estimated that, even in the best-case senario, $1 of government spending will generate between $0.40 and $0.70 of economic growth, i.e., much less than the amount of growth that we would get if that dollar was invested privately. What’s more, if that dollar has previously been taxed out the economy, then the overall effect of $1 of government spending is a destruction of $1.10 of economic growth. Not exactly the rosy projections that Romer is touting today. (And Barro is not alone. Even the most optimistic projections of the economic effect of government spending never display such numbers. Never.)

de Rugy is testifying before Congress to make this and many other points exposing the fairy tales contained in the latest fantasy report on the magical stimulus so please read the rest.  No doubt this latest "created or saved" report was designed to convince an increasingly skeptical electorate Democrats' latest experiment in Keynesian economics wasn't a complete disaster.  Perhaps they should take James Carville's latest advice and start praying instead.

Obama Would 'Rather Be Really Good One-Term President'

Well, I don't know about the "good" part but the one-term part seems more and more likely all the time.  Obama's statement comes from an exclusive interview with Diane Sawyer.  In the interview, Obama concedes he has made mistakes particularly on health care:

The president conceded he has made mistakes, at one point saying, "I'd probably say I make a mistake a day, maybe two." One of the biggest, he said, was the confusing way in which the health bill was shaped.

H/T: Memeorandum

But the president insisted "I didn't make a bunch of deals… I am happy to own up to the fact that I have not changed Congress and how it operates the way I would have liked.""I think the healthcare debate as it unfolded legitimately raised concerns not just among my opponents, but also amongst reporters that we just don't know what's going on," and that some "stray cats" got in the bill, he said.

Umm, I am not entirely sure the issue was that he didn't know what was going on... he was in on all those back room deals after all.  Reaganite Republican notes Bill Kristol sees Obama's problems both politically and legislatively are a direct result of his failure to work with Republicans in a bipartisan fashion:

And the pollster had no doubt re. what the administration's biggest mistake on ObamaCare was- "not getting the Republicans in the room". As noted by Bill Kristol on Fox News Sunday, Obama could have actually driven a lot of wedges into the GOP by working with selected factions, leaving them in dissarray... rather, he did the only thing that could have unified Republicans so quickly, ramming partisan legislation through while treating them like children .

Obama plans on papering over his mistakes of the past year in his SOTU address by promising big for the middle class:

Increasing the Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit for middle class families making under $85,000 a year from 20% to 35% of qualifying expenses.

 Capping student federal loan payments to 10 percent of the student's income above a basic living allowance.

 Requiring all employers to give workers an option of automatic workplace direct-deposit IRAs.

 Expanding tax credits to match retirement savings by expanding and simplifying the Saver's Credit to match 50 percent of the first $1,000 of contributions by families earning up to $65,000 and providing a partial credit to families earning up to $85,000.

 Expanding support for families balancing work with caring for elderly relatives with a $102.5 million Caregiver Initiative.

 I am not sure imposing new requirements on employers is a great idea with the unemployment rate climbing and jobs foremost on voters' minds.  Increasing child and dependent care tax credits are only beneficial if people actually have jobs to go to.  Nevertheless, there is no better way to silence the plebes than sending baskets of gold to be divided among them.

Tough Love from Obamalovin' Media

They carried him to election so who better to tell him he's getting a bit too heavy to carry?  Not in terms of his weight surely, but the additional baggage the shameful loss in Massachusetts adds to the administration destined to turn back the tides and heal the planet.  It's getting too tough to spin so a little tough love was in order.  Frank Rich and Bob Herbert, both do a left wing intervention for their beloved Barack. The message "Snap out of it."

Starting with Herbert, who wonders how loud do the alarm bells have to get:

While the nation was suffering through the worst economy since the Depression, the Democrats wasted a year squabbling like unruly toddlers over health insurance legislation. No one in his or her right mind could have believed that a workable, efficient, cost-effective system could come out of the monstrously ugly plan that finally emerged from the Senate after long months of shady alliances, disgraceful back-room deals, outlandish payoffs and abject capitulation to the insurance companies and giant pharmaceutical outfits.

The public interest? Forget about it.

Herbert's advice, get cracking on jobs, though he doesn't expect much in the way of results:

 The Democrats still hold the presidency and large majorities in both houses of Congress. The idea that they are not spending every waking hour trying to fix the broken economic system and put suffering Americans back to work is beyond pathetic. Deficit reduction is now the mantra in Washington, which means that new large-scale investments in infrastructure and other measures to ease the employment crisis and jump-start the most promising industries of the 21st century are highly unlikely.

What we’ll get instead is rhetoric. It’s cheap, so we can expect a lot of it.

Scorch, of course Herbert has to land a few zingers on the GOP but much of the article is directed at the administration and Congress who don't seem to get it.  Frank Rich takes a gentler approach but points out Obama is no JFK:

 Kennedy didn’t settle for the generic populist rhetoric of Obama’s latest threats to “fight” unspecified bankers some indeterminate day. He instead took the strong action of dressing down U.S. Steel by name. As Richard Reeves writes in his book “President Kennedy,” reporters were left “literally gasping.” The young president called out big steel for threatening “economic recovery and stability” while Americans risked their lives in Southeast Asia. J.F.K. threatened to sic his brother’s Justice Department on corporate records and then held firm as his opponents likened his flex of muscle to the power grabs of Hitler and Mussolini. (Sound familiar?) U.S. Steel capitulated in two days. The Timessoon reported on its front page that Kennedy was at “a high point in popular support.”

Can anyone picture Obama exerting such take-no-prisoners leadership to challenge those who threaten our own economic recovery and stability at a time of deep recession and war? That we can’t is a powerful indicator of why what happened in Massachusetts will not stay in Massachusetts if this White House fails to reboot.

Call me crazy Mr. Rich, but Obama has done a lot of calling out to corporate America.  There has been lots of finger pointing but job creation has been MIA.  Democrats surprisingly enough, float new ideas daily on how they might still pass health care.  The pivots to jobs and the economy  has been nothing more than rhetoric, but as Herbert said, talk's cheap.

Merry Christmas - White House Pivoting from Health Care

Politico is reporting the White House is secretly planning for the health care debate to slip into February citing tough agreements yet to be reached on abortion and a tight schedule in the Senate. The push to get health care done by the State of the Union speech appears to be out of reach. Break my heart.

Falling poll numbers and the recent defection of Parker Griffiths to the Republicans appears to have the Dems nervous about having their members taking tough votes and plan to pivot to job creation and create a "conversation" about deficit reduction.

Internally, White House aides are plunging into a 2010 plan calling for an early focus on creating jobs, especially in the energy sector, along with starting a conversation about deficit reduction measures, the administration officials said.

Both will be major themes for his first State of the Union speech, which will most likely take place on Jan. 26 or Feb. 2. White House aides are in the early stages of planning for the national address, but Obama will not only trumpet what he has described as his “B-plus” performance in 2009 but also set the stage for the 2010 congressional campaigns.

Obama and Democrats seem in agreement that they want to minimize the number of tough votes moderates in their party must take in the aftermath of the health care debate. They also seem in agreement that a jobs bill is a must — and that they need to show a serious commitment to reducing the deficit, a very difficult task after racking up record spending in Obama’s first year.

 The White House also seems to have discovered House Democrats aren't exactly willing to swallow the Senate Reid bill without a fight for a few key items:

House Democrats insisted Tuesday they have no plans to roll over for the Senate in upcoming negotiations on a health reform bill, even as they acknowledged it would be all but impossible to reinsert a public insurance option or force the so-called millionaire's tax on the Senate.

Either move would disrupt Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s no-margin-for-error 60-vote majority. But House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her leadership team seem to have their sights set on lower-profile - but no-less important differences, like boosting affordability credits in the final bill and starting the insurance exchange a year earlier, which they did in the House.

On a conference call Tuesday, Pelosi (D-Calif.) walked the party’s leadership team through differences in the two bills.

Other differences the speaker mentioned Tuesday include: replacing the Senate’s state-run exchanges with a national exchange established under the House bill, adding tougher mandates to make sure everyone secures health coverage and closing a gap in prescription-drug coverage next year. Senate negotiators have agreed to close the so-called “donut hole,” but they haven’t agreed on a time to implement those changes.

As Ed Morrissey notes these are not issues that will be easily overcome:

Forget Raul Grijalva’s note of encouragement.  These issues will be too tough to overcome without the House reworking the bill.  That  will either require a conference committee to resolve the two bills or an attempt by Harry Reid to get the Senate to buy a House version (the “ping-pong” strategy), either of which would be subject to cloture votes and unlikely to succeed to a floor vote.

My take, the longer the health care bill goes on the less likely it is to finally pass.  This decision to pivot to jobs and deficit reduction will be hampered by the unfinished health care legislation that looms over the heads of small business owners who are the real job creation engine in the country.   Small business owners need to know how much it will cost them to hire and health care plays a huge role in that decision.  The odds of Democrats shelving the year long health care debate just went up dramatically.

 Certainly whatever comes from the White House in terms of job creation is unlikely to do much to make a dent in the spiraling unemployment rates as we saw with the stimulus.  In the end what we will have from the White House is a lot of conversation and little in the way of solid action.  As the President is fond of saying, "the time for talk is over."

Hoax and Change - UPDATED

Rush's comments on Obama's speech today pretty much sums up the substance, or lack thereof, Obama's plan for jobs and growth has become. Blame Bush, check. Total revisionist history, check. Rush destroys the speech:



UPDATE: Via Hotairpundit: Karl Rove responds:



See more at the link to Hotairpundit.

Baghdad Bob Gibbs Spins the Stimulus Created or Saved Jobs

Baghdad Bob Gibbs has his hands full lately spinning the created or saved jobs stories that are supposed to prove the $787 billion stimulus wasn't a complete waste of taxpayer's money.  Yesterday the AP noted that a report of 30,000 jobs created or saved by the stimulus was full of problems:

"The AP review found some counts were more than 10 times as high as the actual number of jobs; some jobs credited to the stimulus program were counted two and sometimes more than four times; and other jobs were credited to stimulus spending when none was produced."

The White House blog did a fact check on the AP report, yes seriously they did.  Of course the mistakes  found by AP weren't the government's fault, the mistakes were caused by the stupid people who received the money:

Governors, mayors, county executives, private businesses and community organizations across the country submit reports to Recovery.gov so that you can get an unprecedented look at how your taxpayer dollars are being spent creating jobs and boosting the economy through the Recovery Act. These reports are not from the federal government – but from the very people putting Recovery funds to work. 

Well that's a relief that is!  I feel so much better now knowing that it was just the people who got the money who gave the inflated figures on jobs created or saved.   The White House then reported they would release an exact accounting of jobs "created and saved" on Recovery.Gov today at 3:00, it's now 3:59 and still no report.   Jake Tapper got an advance on the report and writes:

The numbers come from Congressionally-mandated reports submitted earlier this month by tens of thousands of state and local governments, private companies, colleges, universities, and community organizations nationwide, administration officials said, with the majority of the funds coming from state governments.

Factoring jobs indirectly created from the stimulus -- not reflected in these numbers -- an administration official says in a statement that "because these reports show that less than half of the spending through that date created or saved about 650,000 jobs, they confirm government and private forecaster’s estimates that overall Recovery Act spending has created and saved at least 1 million jobs."

So the new numbers come from the same people who received the money but these are Congressionally mandated reports so I guess they are supposed to be reliable this time.   Jake Tapper asked Gibbs today why the American people should believe these numbers:

TAPPER:  How credible should the American people consider these numbers, given that in many cases they're rough estimates and there has been some reporting problems in the past?

GIBBS:  Well, I -- there -- there were -- there was a reporting problem with one of the contracting numbers because that paperwork went up quite quickly.  They've had a chance to go through the numbers over the past couple weeks and address any confusion or errors.  This is paperwork directly from a project that money has been appropriated for, so I think the American people can have confidence in them.

Say what?  Here is the latest screen shot from Recovery.gov that shows the new "created or saved" magical jobs numbers:

Jobs Created or Saved as Reported by Recipients that were misleading before but now have the Federal government seal of approval.   Does anyone else think it is not a coincidence these numbers are coming late on a Friday?

Via Michelle Malkin Republican.Senate.Gov has a top ten list of "Created or Saved Jobs" stories spun by this administration to prove the $787 billion stimulus was not a complete waste of taxpayer's dollars.