ALG Editor’s Note: As noted in the following featured editorial from the New Hampshire Union Leader, the $826 billion “stimulus” is not all it was cracked up to be:
Stimulus flop: Reality vs. the hype
The Obama White House told us again and again that federal stimulus money would create 16,000 jobs in New Hampshire. Democratic Party officials spread the number as if it had been handed to them on a stone tablet personally chiseled by Moses.
“It will create more than 16,000 new jobs for New Hampshire families,” Rep. Paul Hodes wrote in a column for this newspaper in February 2009.
Rep. Carol Shea-Porter was one who did not mindlessly parrot the Obama line. The same month Hodes dutifully followed orders and repeated the 16,000 figure, Shea-Porter said, “We are actually hoping for 22,800 jobs.”
Count us 20,600 jobs short of Shea-Porter’s guess.
New Hampshire’s stimulus director told the Executive Council on Wednesday that the $720 million in stimulus money Obama and Congress so graciously gave us has funded 2,200 jobs. That comes to $327,273 per job. Well done, Mr. President!
As inflated with political puffery as the “16,000 jobs” figure was, the 2,200 figure is, as they say in Hollywood, “based on a true story.” Stimulus money might have gone to 2,200 jobs, but just because a job got a stimulus subsidy does not mean it would have disappeared without the subsidy.
Among the New Hampshire jobs supposedly “created or saved” with stimulus funds are eight visual artists and 16 performing artists who got grants through the New Hampshire Arts Council. Would those artists have been otherwise entirely unemployed without the stimulus subsidies? Doubtful.
None of this should be surprising. Obama’s preposterous job-creation claims were never remotely realistic. The stimulus was another one of his overhyped, oversold, Rooseveltian scams to hoodwink the people into thinking he was actually doing something useful. If you think the dramatic difference between the promise and the reality of the stimulus bill is disappointing, just wait until the results of the health care reform come in.
