Stimulus Math

Obama said at the non state of the union address back in February:
For $784 billion dollars, we are going to save or create 3.15 million jobs.

$787,000 million divided by 3.5 million = $224,857.00 per job!
Hey, I want one of those jobs!
And my taxes won't go up one dime because I don't make more than $250,000!

Seriously, though, how do we know which jobs were saved? Could this statement NOT be true, even if we created no jobs? As long as we don't end up with fewer than 3.5 million people employed - they have all been saved - this claim has to be true.

So, basically, we could spend $787,000 million, create zero jobs or lose more jobs (and that's what increasing unemployment means - more people lost jobs) and Obama could STILL declare this plan is spectacular success! Well, I suppose it depends on what your definition of "is" is.

That is one extreme, but even a realistic person is going to come to the conclusion that we will never know which jobs were created as a consequence of this plan or which jobs were saved, with one exception: Federal government jobs. But what does that do for you? I don't know of any government jobs that actually create wealth. Paying those salaries diminishes wealth. The revenue that pays for those jobs comes right out of the GPD in the form of taxes, and creates no industries or businesses that do not rely on taxes to fund. Transferring our nations wealth to the government, expecting that somehow more businesses will result who will employ more people is -- well -- silly. It just results in a bigger bill to the taxpayer. The taxpayer spends less, reducing commerical activity, resulting in fewer businesses, less investment and more unemployment.