7 Months After Stimulus 49 of 50 States Have Lost Jobs

http://www.republicans.waysandmeans.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=150826

7 Months After Stimulus 49 of 50 States Have Lost Jobs

The table below compares the White House's February 2009 projection of the number of jobs that would be created by the 2009 stimulus law (through the end of 2010) with the actual change in state payroll employment through September 2009 (the latest figures available). According to the data, 49 States and the District of Columbia have lost jobs since stimulus was enacted. Only North Dakota has seen net job creation following the February 2009 stimulus. While President Obama claimed the result of his stimulus bill would be the creation of 3.5 million jobs, the Nation has already lost a total of 2.7 million – a difference of 6.2 million jobs. To see how stimulus has failed your state, see the table below.

See the link.

 

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/pub...ministration/daily_presidential_tracking_poll

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Wednesday shows that 27% of the nation's voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Forty percent (40%) Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -13. That’s just a point above the lowest level ever recorded for this President. It’s also the sixth straight day in negative double digits, matching the longest such streak (see trends).

Just 31% of voters believe that Congress has a good understanding of the health care proposal.

Thirty-nine percent (39%) of Republicans have a favorable opinion of their party’s national chairman, Michael Steele.

The Presidential Approval Index is calculated by subtracting the number who Strongly Disapprove from the number who Strongly Approve. It is updated daily at 9:30 a.m. Eastern (sign up for free daily e-mail update). Updates also available on Twitter and Facebook.

Overall, 47% of voters say they at least somewhat approve of the President's performance. Fifty-three percent (53%) disapprove.

 

Here's that Barfosky guy again.

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20091021/D9BFFSOG0.html

Bailout watchdog expects much to remain unrefunded


WASHINGTON (AP) - The man who watches over the $700 billion in government money given to banks and other institutions to avert a financial collapse said Wednesday he thinks it's too early to say how much will be repaid to the taxpayers.

Just as the Obama administration prepares to announce a new TARP-like program for small community banks, Inspector General Neil Barofsky said he believes that "it's unrealistic to think we're going to get all of that money back."

The Treasury Department has spent more than $454 billion through TARP programs. Forty-seven recipients have paid back nearly $73 billion. That means more than $317 billion remains outstanding with the program set to expire Dec. 31.

Later Wednesday, President Barack Obama is expected to announce the community bank assistance effort. The American Bankers' Association has asked for $5 billion in rescue-fund money to help small banks extend more loans.

Asked on a nationally broadcast interview how he would grade the program, Barofsky said, "I think right now it would have to be an incomplete." Barofsky did say the program was successful in "pulling us back" from a financial collapse, however. At the same time, he told CBS's "The Early Show" that the resumption of huge executive bonus payments by some of the same institutions that benefited from the government bailout has sown distrust and cynicism among many taxpayers.

The mixed and blunt assessment came as the Obama administration takes steps to wind down and refocus the Wall Street rescue effort. Barofsky's conclusions were in a quarterly report scheduled for release later Wednesday.

An administration official said Tuesday that the bailout effort's signature initiative - a capital purchase program that aimed to inject $218 billion into banks - would effectively wrap up at the end of the year.

But even as the administration aimed to refocus the massive Troubled Asset Relief Program on small businesses and homeowners, Barofsky said in his report that the effort to save the nation's financial sector came at great cost to taxpayers, to the integrity of the financial system and to the public's perception of the federal government.

"Despite the aspects of TARP that could reasonably be viewed as a substantial success," he wrote, "Treasury's actions in this regard have contributed to damage the credibility of the program and of the government itself, and the anger, cynicism and distrust created must be chalked up as one of the substantial, albeit unnecessary, costs of TARP."

Barofsky said public suspicion was fed by Treasury's decision not to require banks to report how they used their rescue money and its "less-than-accurate" statements describing the financial condition of nine large banks that benefited from large infusions of aid. The TARP program began under the administration of President George W. Bush and has expanded under Obama.

The administration official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the details had not yet been made public, said the Treasury Department plans to cap two TARP programs at levels below initial projections. A program designed to rid big banks of their bad assets will spend $30 billion instead of $75 billion. Another that supports a Federal Reserve effort to ease bank credit will top off at $30 billion instead of $80 billion. A new initiative aimed at banks - the Capital Assistance Program - had no applicants and will also end, the official said.

The overall TARP program has come under criticism in Congress from across the political spectrum. Liberals maintain the program needs to shift its focus from big financial firms to small businesses and homeowners. Conservatives insist the program has been an unnecessary intrusion into the financial sector and should end swiftly.

In his report, Barofsky credited the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department for adopting some of his accountability recommendations over the past several months. But he said several of his agency's proposals for greater transparency have gone unheeded.

The report describes a patchwork of initiatives carried out under the TARP umbrella - some designed to assist the biggest of Wall Street institutions, others to bail out the struggling auto industry and yet others to help homeowners struggling to stave off foreclosure.

Even within those programs, Barofsky found inconsistent attempts to hold recipients of the bailout accountable to taxpayers.

 

They bought up the other banks and paid out big salaries.

 

That's shockingly bad analysis. Obama claimed that the stimulus bill would create jobs, not that it would result in a net gain in jobs for the economy overall. There is a difference.

If I hire 10 people and Denny Crane lays off 15 people, I've created 10 jobs, but unemployment has gone up by 5. If I hadn't created those 10 jobs, though, unemployment would have gone up by 15.

Now, Denny, it is time for you to trot out the predictions of unemployment rates from February and try once again to pretend that those predictions prove that the stimulus package cost the country jobs.

barfo

 

You can't prove that Obama's created one private sector job.

Your line of reasoning echoes Obama's, and when he says these things, he's ridiculed by top economists.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124451592762396883.html

This bit is quite good:

And before you trot out the "shoot the messenger" routine, there's this:

That would be the same Max Baucus who produced the health care bill you'll certainly argue for without reading or understanding it.

Another good read from a far left wing source:

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/10/13-4

 

Oh, nonsense. That's just obviously silly on the face of it. The only way the government could spend 787 billion and not create any jobs is to wire the money directly to a swiss bank account.

Here's an article from my local paper from a few days ago:

Now, if they'd meant zero, they probably would have said that, rather than "fewer than 2000", don't you think?

All of the rest of your post amounts to saying that there is a difference between job creation and unemployment, which is what I said in my previous post. Of course there is.

And yes, it is hard or impossible to measure "jobs saved", and that allows politicians to say what they want - on both sides.

barfo