Obama Stimulus saved your job - or did it?
Written by Michael Vass
It’s almost funny how the Government can make you feel less intelligent than a 5th grader. I mean if you thought you knew how to add, the Government makes you seriously question that. Because the math they use for some of the things they state is either wrong, or so advanced to make me wonder what I was taught. Especially since the Government is absolutely sure that they know better than the public.
Case in point is the Obama Stimulus. The Government took $787 billion of our money to ensure that the economic crisis that we were facing in January would not get worse. President Obama, and a slew of Democrats, politicians, White House economists, and others swore that passage of the Stimulus package would “create or save” jobs. President Obama virtually guartanteed that if the Stimulus was passed unemployment would be capped at 8.5%, the recession would end, and there would be sunshine and lollipops for everyone.
The Obama Administration really rammed home the thought that the Stimulus had to be passed immediately. So no one in Congress read the Bill, nor did the White House. And the prospect of proving a “saved” job was set aside as the rantings of racists and greedy corporate execs. So the Bill that no one read was passed, preventing a ‘Depression greater than in the 1930’s’.
Since the passage of the Obama Stimulus the economy has gotten worse. Unemployment has not only surpassed 8.5% (currently 9.7%), it is now forecast - by the White House - to hit at least 10% this year. Other forecasts target 11.5% unemployment in 2010. Which says nothing of the real unemployment rate (which is not how the Government counts) of 15% currently or what it will be in 2010.
Mortgages in delinquency rates have reached highs never before seen. According to the MBA (Mortgage Bankers Association), which has records going back to 1972, the delinquency rate – loans that are more than 1 month late but not in foreclosure – is 8.86% as of August. That is a new high, breaking the record set in the 1st quarter of 2009. If we include mortgages that are in foreclosure the rate is 13.16% also an all-time high.
Thus we see directly that actions to prevent increases in home loan defaults have failed, and the Obama Stimulus failed in this regard as well. Which breaks promises that President Obama made about passage of the Stimulus package.
Yet none of this prevented the White House from claiming that 150,000 jobs were “saved or created” by the Stimulus in May. Which was announced as the White House pushed the auto industry into bankruptcy, immediately forcing over 100,000 people into unemployment.
Better yet. Over 1 million more people are currently unemployed today than if the Obama Stimulus was never passed. That is according to figures given by President Obama to Congress and the nation.
Still none of this has prevented the Obama Administration from strutting like a peacock while stating that they have now “saved or created” 1 million jobs with the Obama Stimulus.
Less noted by the Obama Administration is another part of the conversation the White House Council of Economic Advisers had at the same time with the news media
“In a conference call with reporters, the council chairwoman, Christina Romer, said it was “absolutely correct” that other factors may have affected the economy, but that the stimulus plan was “one of the biggest.”
So with my 5th grade math I get the following. The White House says they “created or saved” 1 million jobs. But you can’t count a “saved” anything because you can’t prove it. Effectively it does not exist. So that is 0. Thus we are left with 1,000,000 + 0 = 1million jobs.
But we must subtract no less than 1,240,000 jobs up until June and add in at least 216,000 jobs lost in August or 1,240,000 + 216,000 = 1,456,000 jobs lost.
So the real math of 5th grade says 1,000,000 – 1,456,000 = negative 456,000 jobs.
Thus the math that allowed the Greeks to figure out the distance to the moon, the math that every child in America can do, the math that has Americans balancing checkbooks and buying groceries says that the Obama Stimulus – at best – has lost almost 500,000 more jobs than promised. And this assumes that 1 million jobs were created somewhere that no one has seen, nor has been reflected in the unemployment numbers. A strutting peacock indeed.
I suppose the ultimate thing is this. What do you believe, simple math or the polispeak words of an elected official with a vested interest in the 2010 mid-term elections and Health Care Reform Bill?
I think you can see my choice. What’s yours?
