Tuesday Jobs Bill Open Comments

Since Obama’s latest Important Political Speech, there has been much wrangling over the most recent “Jobs Bill”. He’s asking for around $447 billion in order to:

• Extend unemployment beyond the almost 2 years already done
• Throw together some job-retraining stuff
• Fund some shovel-ready infrastructure projects
• Provide some employment incentives
• Extend a payroll tax holiday
• Other stuff

This is great in theory, but how much of all this does our $447 billion buy? If it would enable the creation of 20 million legitimate and permanent private sector jobs, most would look at it as a bargain. We all know that will not happen. The proponents claim that we just have to do something. Those against say we might as well throw the money into the street and set it on fire (but not in Texas! there’s enough stuff burning here already).
Fortunately for us all, intrepid reporters and other journalist-type people at the New York Times have come up with a couple of estimates for the number of jobs this stimulus the “jobs bill” will create. Their estimates range from 100,000 to 165,000 jobs per month over the next year or so. That would mean a range of 1.2 million to about 2 million over a year’s time.
Let’s be optimistic.
If 2 million jobs (that sounds like a lot, no?) were to be created, we would be spending a smidgen less than a quarter of a million dollars per job. That’s not much of a bargain.
Fortunately, it looks like the bill will have a very difficult time making it through the House (which would be expected).

House Speaker John Boehner offered little more endorsement than that it “merited consideration,” while a top Senate Republican, echoing others in his party, dismissed it as more of Obama’s “tired agenda.”

Meanwhile, Democrats in the Senate are barking about it as well.

As he demands Congress quickly approve his ambitious proposal aimed at reviving the sagging economy, many Democrats on Capitol Hill appear far from sold that the president has the right antidote to spur major job growth and turn around their party’s political fortunes.
“Terrible,” Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.) told POLITICO when asked about the president’s ideas for how to pay for the $450 billion price tag. “We shouldn’t increase taxes on ordinary income. … There are other ways to get there.”
“That offset is not going to fly, and he should know that,” said Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu from the energy-producing Louisiana, referring to Obama’s elimination of oil and gas subsidies. “Maybe it’s just for his election, which I hope isn’t the case.”

Obama just can’t get anyone to show him the love anymore. In fact, he’s now been reduced to begging for it from a bunch of university students.

“Every single one of you can help make this bill a reality,” the president called out at a hot and noisy rally at North Carolina State University.
Someone in the crowd yelled out, “I love you!”
“If you love me you got to help me pass this bill,” the president responded.

You really need to hear the audio to get a feel for how pathetic he is getting.
Meanwhile, we all know that what it takes to get the economy going is practically free.