Tag Archives: Stimulus Plan

CBO: Stimulus Has a Negative Effect on GDP Over Long Term (Video)

By Duane Lester - - 0 Comments

While Obama is in Australia selling cap and trade as something that is good for our economy over the long term, the CBO is busy telling Sen. Jeff Sessions the “agency’s long-term projections about President Obama’s first stimulus bill show a negative long-term effect on economic growth.”

It’s important to note Sen. Sessions’ point about how the stimulus will impact the economy after that ten year projection. We will still have all that money to pay back, and that will require taxes to be paid by the citizenry.

It’s the plan that just keeps on taking. And failing.

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Unreal: 47% of People Hired With Stimulus Funds Were Already Employed

By Duane Lester - - 1 Comment

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, aka the Stimulus Plan, was supposed to keep America from marching off the economic cliff. It would, liberals claimed, prevent unemployment from rising above 8 percent.

However, almost half the time someone was hired with Stimulus funds, they weren’t unemployed. They were simply switching jobs:

From the Mercadus Center:

Hiring isn’t the same as net job creation. In our survey, just 42.1 percent of the workers hired at ARRA-receiving organizations after January 31, 2009, were unemployed at the time they were hired (Appendix C). More were hired directly from other organizations (47.3 percent of post-ARRA workers), while a handful came from school (6.5%) or from outside the labor force (4.1%)(Figure 2). Thus, there was an almost even split between “job creating” and “job switching.” This suggests just how hard it is for Keynesian job creation to work in a modern, expertise-based economy: even in a weak economy, organizations hired the employed about as often as the unemployed.

What I want to know is if these organizations would have or could have made the same hiring decisions if they didn’t have access to Stimulus funds.

Hat Tip: Say Anything Blog

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Stimulus Plan Failure Outlined in the New York Times; Yes, That New York Times

By Duane Lester - - 0 Comments

When Walter Cronkite did his nightly newscast, describing the Tet Offensive as some sort of victory for the communists, it is reported that then president Lyndon Johnson said, “If we’ve lost Cronkite, we’ve lost the war.”

It’s possible he didn’t say it.  Who knows.  But I can tell you that the New York Times is publishing editorials describing how big a failure the Stimulus Plan was.

And if Obama has lost the Times, he’s lost America:

As planned, almost all of the tax cuts and public spending increases from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 are finished. The Obama administration and its supporters promised that the fiscal stimulus law would create or save more than three million jobs by now. Their stated intention was to provide government spending while the economy was weak, then end the extra spending as the economy recovered.

But instead of adding jobs, employment is now about two million below what it was when the law was passed in February 2009.

There are things in this piece that brutalize the Stimulus Plan like a drunken sailor brutalizes his liver.  They are called “facts.”

There is little doubt the country has moved past spending as a solution, which bodes well for fiscal hawks.  Good news, most of them are on the right.

 

 

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AFL-CIO Promotes Raising the Gas Taxes to Create Jobs

By Duane Lester - - 4 Comments

The man who gets the ear of the White House every day now says the way to bounce out of this jobless recovery is to raise the gas tax so millions of infrastructure jobs can be created.

Raise taxes, according to AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka. Specifically, he wants to raise the federal gas tax as a means to fund infrastructure spending. “We need a dedicated source of revenue to create infrastructure in this country,” he tells Aaron Task in the accompanying clip.

“We need to create jobs. The best way to do that is through infrastructure development.” Simply maintaining the existing infrastructure in this country will cost $2.2 trillion over five years, according to the American Society of Civil Engineers. That doesn’t include Obama’s objective of high-speed rails and green energy projects.

Trumka didn’t say specifically how much he would raise the gas tax, but mentioned he’s shown the President a $256 billion plan to improve infrastructure. If every billion spent on infrastructure creates 35,000 jobs, as he claims, this package would create close to 9 million jobs over the next five years.

Maybe I don’t remember things quite clearly, but I seem to remember nearly a trillion dollars being set aside to create jobs, partially by “investing” the money in necessary infrastructure projects and signs bragging about all the work being done for us.

Why didn’t that work?

Oh yeah, organizations that employ union employees like the kind Trumka represents got a lot of the money.

Vice President Joe Biden made no secret of the fact that Obama’s stimulus package was aimed at boosting union jobs.

“We’re going to make sure that in every policy, every decision, we don’t lose sight of the folks that brought us to the dance,” [Biden] said — a reference to organized labor’s support of the Obama-Biden ticket. “And toward that end, we have to make sure that the jobs we’re creating come with fair wages and decent benefits.”

Biden focused on the stimulus package, noting it will send taxpayer money through the pipeline to union jobs and specifically those in the building trades unions. “The focus of this administration the first month has been to rebuild American roads, bridges, waterways — jobs for the building trades union,” he said.

The stimulus package producing union jobs doesn’t sound so bad, until you realize that only 12.5% of Americans workers are unionized. Where does that leave the other 87.5% of Americans ? Out in the cold. In addition, 84% of construction jobs are non-union. They aren’t getting any help from Obama/Biden either. And those higher union wages for “shovel-ready” stimulus projects come directly from the pockets of the American taxpayers, not that our federal government ever gives a whit about them.

And don’t forget the payoffs to the teacher’s unions:

Based on the Recovery.gov data, more than two third of the 594,754.3 jobs “created or saved” with the stimulus funds were “created or saved” in the Department of Education (see chart).  Basically, what the administration meant by shovel ready projects was funding for your next door teacher.

Understand this. No one in this administration is interested in saving or creating any job that does not come with a union label. If it happens, it’s unintentional. Consider yourself lucky.

The primary focus is funding union jobs, so those due paying members can launder the federal funding back to the Democrat coffers.

Now, they want to make it more expensive for you to put gas in your car.

This is the left’s idea of job creation.

Here’s mine. It has three steps for the Federal government:

  1. Abolish the income tax and implement the Fair Tax.
  2. Reduce federal regulations that create road blocks for the private sector.
  3. Get the Hell out of the way.



The third step is kind of redundant, but we’re talking about the federal government.  They can be kind of dense, so it’s important to emphasize it.

That’s one of the main differences between the right and the left.  The left sees the government as the answer to your problems.  The right sees government as the problem and you as the answer.

 

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Obama: “there’s no such thing as shovel-ready projects”

By Duane Lester - - 1 Comment

The New York Times Magazine has an article that is making a lot of noise in the political world. In “The Education of a President,” Times reporter Peter Baker quotes President Obama as saying:

During our hour together, Obama told me he had no regrets about the broad direction of his presidency. But he did identify what he called “tactical lessons.” He let himself look too much like “the same old tax-and-spend liberal Democrat.” He realized too late that “there’s no such thing as shovel-ready projects” when it comes to public works.

No kidding? Only took him half a trillion dollars to learn that. Once again, he conned someone else into paying for his education.

Charles Krauthammer explains why this happened:


On the bright side, Obama has been able to give a boost to the sign making industry.

And the billboard industry.

As an aside, the same article quotes the most intelligent president in the history of the spoken word as saying the problem with health care is one of communication. He just hasn’t been able to explain it correctly:

“We probably spent much more time trying to get the policy right than trying to get the politics right. There is probably a perverse pride in my administration — and I take responsibility for this; this was blowing from the top — that we were going to do the right thing, even if short-term it was unpopular. And I think anybody who’s occupied this office has to remember that success is determined by an intersection in policy and politics and that you can’t be neglecting of marketing and P.R. and public opinion.”

That’s the problem? You just haven’t sold it correctly?

You know what that reminds me of? Kurt Russell in “Used Cars.” The guy knows he’s selling junk, but man, can he sell it.

Not Safe For Work Language


Yeah, that’s what is missing. Obama needs to get on television more and say, “I know what you’re thinking America. You’re thinking, ‘Can I afford to buy health care like this?’ Am I right? Well seriously America, you can’t afford not to and I’m gonna make it easy on you. You add up the savings in health care costs, Medicare cuts and streamlining records, you’re actually gonna come out ahead. That’s right, we’re gonna add billions in costs and actually cut the budget.”

This is how he sees us. Like a fish on a used car lot.

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Then: “Caterpillar Can Rehire if Stimulus Passes”
Now: “Caterpillar to install factory in China”; w/ bonus Flashback

By Duane Lester - - 3 Comments

Here is President Obama a year ago, pushing his Stimulus Plan and making the claim that the Caterpillar CEO said if the plan passes, they can rehire some of the 22,000 folks they laid off:

If you remember, the CEO, Jim Owens, then turned around and totally contradicted what Obama said:

Asked if the stimulus package would be able to stop the 22,000 layoffs or not, Owens said, “I think realistically no. The truth is we’re going to have more layoffs before we start hiring again”

“It is going to take some time before that stimulus bill” means re-hiring, he said.

Caterpillar is hiring again, but not in America.  In China:

Construction will begin in Wujiang, near Shanghai, at the end of 2010 and the facility should be ready in 2012 to begin production of mini excavators of less than eight tons, the company said Tuesday.

Caterpillar did not say how much the project will cost.

It is part of a long-term plan for investments in China that will make Caterpillar one of the leading manufacturers of construction equipment in the country.

Now I suppose the leftists out there think I should start sounding off on Caterpillar and how they are shipping jobs overseas and harrumph, harrumph and harrumph.

No, I don’t think I’ll do that.  I think we need to look at the facts.  The president made a claim, numerous claims in fact, about his Stimulus Plan that just have not come true.

It is a complete failure.  Yet they keep trotting around the country, either saying it worked or saying, “Oh, it could have been so much worse.”

No, no, no, no, no.

It didn’t work.  It failed.  And if this new plant wasn’t planned before, it’s another example of how much of a failure this plan actually was.

Finally, a quick flashback:  Caterpillar brags on China’s Stimulus Package

At the same time, the company said it did expect some benefit this year from China’s economic-stimulus package.

“China, with an economy one-third the size of the United States, is allocating over three times as much for infrastructure,” Caterpillar said. “Initial results from this package look promising.”

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Summer of Recover Rampage Continues Unchecked: Umemployment Rises to 9.6%

By Duane Lester - - 0 Comments



The leviathan that is the Summer of Recovery continues it’s rampage against the American economy, creating a swath of destruction similar to a Jenny Craig support group’s effect on an Old Country Buffet. This time, it’s caused the unemployment rate to rise to 9.6%:

Job losses continued to mount in the U.S. economy last month, though at a more modest pace than expected, putting further pressure on policy makers to take action to spur growth and employment.

Ok, let’s stop right there. Someone is going to have to talk to the official spokesmen of the Obama Summer of Recovery Communication Department, aka the main stream media, and tell them to stop using the term “unexpectedly.” Everything bad that happens in this economy is somehow not expected.

Not expected by who? I know I expected these things to happen. Pretty much everyone who opposes the Keynesian economic policies of this administration expected this.

After 18 months of fail, I think it’s time to stop being surprised with more bad news.

Nonfarm payrolls fell by 54,000 last month, matching the level of revised losses recorded the previous month, the U.S. Labor Department said Friday. The revision in July layoffs to 54,000 followed an original estimate of a 131,000 drop in payrolls.

The U.S. economy has shed jobs for three straight months, though the losses in August were about half the 110,000 predicted by economists in a Dow Jones Newswires survey.

The unemployment rate, calculated using a separate household survey, edged up to 9.6%, as expected, after holding at 9.5% for previous two months.

The Stimulus Plan was promised to keep unemployment under 8%. Without it, it was suggested the unemployment rate may jump as high as 8.5% in 2009 and peak at 9% in 2010.

And now Christina Romer is channeling Joe Biden as she leaves the White House, saying they didn’t really understand what was going on:

An estimate of what the economy will look like if a policy is adopted contains two components: a forecast of what would happen in the absence of the policy, and an estimate of the effect of the policy… we, like virtually every other forecaster, failed to anticipate how violent the recession would be in the absence of policy, and the degree to which the usual relationship between GDP and unemployment would break down.

So what is the anticipated response from the rabid socialists in the halls of Congress and the White House?

More spending.

Brilliant.

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When Is The Stimulus Supposed to Kick In Again?

By Duane Lester - - 0 Comments

January, 2009, 19 months ago, CNNMoney.com wrote the following:

All in all, the legitimate infrastructure spending, which in its expanded form would include Obama’s ambitious plans to invest heavily in renewable energy sources, will most likely not start coming on line until the fourth quarter of the year and its full effect is at least 12 to 18 months away. In other words, the fiscal stimulus measures that the incoming Administration will be pushing through are more a 2010 story.

Fast forward to today:

The recovery lost momentum in the spring as growth slowed to a 2.4 percent pace, its most sluggish showing in nearly a year and too weak to drive down unemployment.

Consumers spent less, companies slowed their restocking of shelves and the nation’s trade deficit dragged more on the economy in the April-to-June quarter. In a separate report, the Commerce Department said the recession was deeper than previously estimated.

Together, the reports raise doubts about whether employers will hire enough and consumers will spend enough to invigorate the economy. As unemployment remains near double digits, Congress could feel pressure to pass more stimulus measures to speed the recovery. So far, Republicans and some Democrats have blocked additional spending because of their concerns about the size of the deficit.

As AJ Strata writes, “…this was the period when the stimulus was ‘designed’ to really kick in.”

That’s what we were told. We were also told “every economist who has looked at it has said that the recovery did its job.”

The fact is the Obama Stimulus was just as effective as the Bush Stimulus. If you want to get the American economy hitting on all cylinders again, it will have to be set free.

Oh yes, despite the incessant droning of Obama and his glassy eyed puppets, we have to return to the policies of the past. I’m not talking about the last 8 years either. I’m talking about the policies that made this country an economic powerhouse. I’m talking about policies from about 200 years ago.

You know, when America was truly free.

That would be a stimulus plan I could support.

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