by The Obama administration released its ‘Seventh Quarterly Report‘ last Friday, just in advance of the long holiday weekend, perhaps hoping that the report’s contents and significance would go unnoticed amidst the joyous celebrations of our nation’s big birthday party.
Seventh Quarterly Report Released
The report, assembled by the White House’s own Council of Economic Advisors, does not reveal a flattering picture of the almost two-year old experiment with Obama’s economic stimulus program. The evidence reveals quite the opposite of success, but rather the program’s pronounced inability to stimulate the economy while doing much to help increase the country’s worrisome debt tab.The Council of Economic Advisors are three hand-picked economists who, by revealing the facts, have uncovered the sad truth about the much-touted stimulus program, and that truth is that it is not working.
Expensive Jobs
The report states that, using “mainstream estimates of economic multipliers for the effects of fiscal stimulus” the stimulus program has added or saved slightly less than 2.4 million jobs in both the private and public sectors. The jobs were saved at a cost to the taxpayers of $666 billion, about $278,000 per job saved. That’s a pretty penny per job.In addition the number of jobs saved or created is declining per quarter. Just two quarters ago the stimulus was reported to have added or saved 2.7 million jobs, more than a quarter of a million more than it did this past quarter. The correct conclusion to draw from this is that the economy would most likely have added more jobs without the stimulus than it has with the stimulus. That’s some stimulus.
Unemployment and Debt Going Up
When President Obama took office and began to debate whether to enact the stimulus program, the unemployment rate stood at 7.3%. Now we find unemployment to be hovering at about 9.1%. The national debt is also soaring. At the end of 2008, just before Obama stepped in as the nation’s leader, the debt was at an eye-popping $9.986 trillion. Today the debt is beyond the stratosphere, topping up at $14.467 trillion, and climbing.It seems we have reached a place where our leaders can agree, whether Democrats or Republicans, our economy would be better off without the “stimulus.”