Obama’s “Create or Save” Jobs Farce
Posted April 29th, 2009 at 10:03am in Ongoing Priorities 
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The Associated Press’s Spin Meter feature reports today that: “Politicians announcing stimulus jobs faster than stimulus can (maybe) create them.” How true. President Barack Obama’s Organizing for America website claims to show jusr how many jobs have been “Created or Saved” by Obama’s stimulus package already.
This despite the fact that the American economy has shed 1.3 million jobs since Obama was inaugurated. How can President Obama claim to be creating jobs when Americans know unemployment is rising under his regime? The AP explains:
For economists, it’s far too early to discuss job creation, said University of Chicago economics professor Steven J. Davis, the author of a book and several studies on the subject. Meaningful data won’t be available for years, he said. Compounding the problem, Davis said, is that Obama has invented a new standard to measure success: Jobs saved.
Measuring job creation is complicated but possible. Counting jobs saved by the stimulus is, if not impossible, murky.
“How do you know what a saved job is? How do you know what jobs would have been lost without this?” Davis said. “That was a clever political gimmick to make it even harder to determine whether this policy has any effect.”
Do the Obama numbers have any basis in reality? Barely. Again from the AP:
Most of the numbers being tossed around, including the 900 figure Obama cited, come from a transportation formula estimating the number of jobs “supported” by government spending. It doesn’t count new or saved jobs, and the Transportation Department has cautioned against applying the formula to the stimulus.
But even those DOT numbers are highly suspect. Heritage analyst Ron Utt explains:
As this paper demonstrates, most of the alleged economic benefits are based on grossly exaggerated claims made by a U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) computer simulation conducted in 2000 and 2002. In fact, the vast majority of independent academic and federal government studies on the relationship between infrastructure spending and economic activity have found that the impact is very modest and long in coming.
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9 Responses to “Obama’s “Create or Save” Jobs Farce”
MAS1916 – Denver, CO on April 29th, 2009 at 10:03am said:
With the recession continuing unabated in Q1, Obama will need to hang onto this illusion that the outrageous spending actually saved a job. Of course if one works for the government, the job saved may have been his, but this President has no idea how a free economy works.
Private investment, incentive and production are the keys to overall economic success.. It just isn’t more complicated than that.
Steve — Fort Nyers, Florida on April 29th, 2009 at 10:03am said:
If jobs is the criteria, the USA would do well to repudiate the so called free trade agreements and bring the millions of jobs, factories and industries back to America. The government should negate all the laws that favored the export of our jobs and instead, provide incentives to companies to return production to the United States. Instead of losing 800 billion dollars a year on a trade deficit, that same 800 billion dollars would serve as a permanent economic stimulus for the people of America.
It sounds too good to be true, but until 1975, the USA was able to generate a trade surplus. Either we begin producing for our own needs or we will become subservient to the nations of the world still willing to work for a living!
Ed Brown – Louisville, KY on April 29th, 2009 at 10:03am said:
The New Deal failed to restore economic health, but it did expand the power of government over the people. It was not the usual contest of partisan or bipartisan, Republican versus Democrat, rather it was more basic. It was the classical republic versus the classical democracy. Government, since the 1910 constitutional amendment to permit the electorate to choose senators directly, rather than through their state legislatures, was becoming less a representative republic than it had once been. It was now being more directly controlled by the people. Voters no longer asked what government was doing on behalf of the general welfare, voters were asking in a very democratic way what the President was doing for them.
As Amity Shlaes points out in The Forgotten Man, the real heroes of the day, were those people, extraordinary individuals who embodied the American Character by aiding and inspiring their fellow citizens in a variety of innovative ways. Roosevelt claimed that his administration had endeavored to “establish new institutions of public power” but as usual it was the the act of “reconciliation.” One side, namely the government, gets the power while the other side, the people, gets reconciled to it. Obama seems to be saying “it’s your money and I want it now.”
In October 1933, unemployment was 22.9 percent. By 1940, after years of big government intervention in the form of the 100 days of the New Deal plus ever increasing government attempts to gain more control over the free market system and the lives of all Americans, unemployment was still 14.6 percent. Do you really believe Oabama is going to have anything but a disastrous effect on this country?
Normca on April 29th, 2009 at 10:03am said:
Saved or created 150,00 jobs – must have been at Catapillar. Oh, I forgot, the young president grew government and shrunk the private economy. Never let a crisis go by without taking advantage to implement what you wanted for eight years.
Ben C, Ann Arbor, MI on April 29th, 2009 at 10:03am said:
Thank you Ed for your insightful comments. What seems to be missing is the fact that “Small Business” is the backbone of our economic system and the single greatest employer other than the federal government. If private enterprise and Small Business are allowed to prosper the country will thrive. The present administration seems to ignore us little people thinking our national economic engine is big business. I have no intention of absorbing the looming tax hikes – I will pass these costs to my clients. I am sure other Small Business people will do the same. And this my friends, is how inflation begins.
HOUSTON on April 29th, 2009 at 10:03am said:
THIS ADMINISTRIATION’S STIMULUS JOBS ARE FOR GOVERNMENT. GOVERNMENT JOBS. IT SAVED AND EXPANDED THE GREAT TEACHERS UNION. NOW THEY HAVE MORE MONEY TO WASTE. EVER JOB WAS A GOVERNMENT EXPANSION., AND TO ENLARGE HE SOCIALIST AGENDA. ALL THIS SO CALLED PRESIDENT KNOWS IS GOVERNMENT. HE HAS NEVER WORKED IN THE PRIVATE SECTOR. HIS INCOME HAS COME FROM THE GOVERNEMNT. THE GOVERNMENT ACORN HE WORKED FOR, THE GOVERNMENT HAND OUTS FOR HIS GREAT EDUCATION AT HARVARD. HIS HOME. ALL HE AND HIS GROUP KNOWS IS GOVERNMENT.
THEY FAIL TO UNDERSTAND SOMEONE OUTSIDE THE GOVERNMENT HAS TO PAY FOR THEIR GOVERNMENT JOBS. (OR DO THEY) AFTER ALL THEY ARE HARVARD AND PRINCTON GRADS.
duelles, Santa Fe, NM on April 29th, 2009 at 10:03am said:
Davis said. “That was a clever political gimmick to make it even harder to determine whether this policy has any effect.”
Davis might have said the man is a sociopath and is incapable of telling the truth. While the little he may know of economic matters gets blended with his version of Nirvana, we end up in Narnia and it will be hard to back into the comfort of the old familiar closet of free markets and entrepreneurship. Giant debt animals chasing us forever.
1st 100 days – YYYYUCK!
Kevin, Addison,TX on April 29th, 2009 at 10:03am said:
It is obvious the president has no clue what to do. let’s all help him in 2010, and vote the democratic congress out.
utopiaorbust on April 29th, 2009 at 10:03am said:
If you read the White House document, they use GDP as an estimate for job-creation. That sounded really suspicious to me, so you check out my critique of it here:
http://utopiaorbust.wordpress.com/2009/07/25/obamas-job-creation-multiplier-explained/