Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Simulating (not Stimulating) Responsible Government

The $787 billion stimulus package hasn't stimulated economic or job growth. It's just delayed the sort of tough cuts and political decisions that are going to be necessary down the road. It has also ballooned the deficit and threatens to beggar our children with new taxes.

Locally, most stimulus money went to school districts. What did it stimulate? The protection of teachers' salaries and benefits, not learning. While millions more went to protect the welfare of poor people. Nice, but hardly stimulative. My print column is up.

UPDATE: More on the Faux Recovery from David Harsanyi:
No, this time the administration will renew its focus on stimulus through a new "green jobs" boondoggle. President Obama announced this week that Washington will offer $2.3 billion in tax credits for "clean energy" jobs. Using his very own pie-in-the-sky calculations, it puts the cost of every job at a tax-financed $135,000.

The uncalculated part of the above equation is this: Bogus jobs kill real jobs. At Madrid's King Juan Carlos University, for instance, a study found that in Spain -- the very country Obama has held out as the exemplar of greening (and with only a 19-plus percent unemployment rate!) -- every green job created had destroyed 2.2 jobs in other sectors of the economy.

3 Comments:

Blogger Bob Bohne said...

Gil - I'm not an economist, but I do know this. My 401K is starting to build back up. Also, 2007 and 2008 were really slow for sales of my paintings, but 2009 was really good. Just a coincidence? And you just bought a house. Sounds to me like the economy is taking a turn.
And whats wrong with green jobs?
What could possibly be wrong with a national push to take advantage of new technology to weatherize houses, and push for fuel efficiency? I would think this is a movement that should be encouraged. Oh, and congrats to Scott for making the papers again.

January 13, 2010 at 5:37 PM 
Blogger Spencerblog said...

Bob, unless there's some sort of new government art buying program that I haven't heard about, I'd say yeah, it's a coincidence.

My buying a house is hardly a reflection of a good economy. You should ask the guy I bought it from. He took a bath.

Green jobs cost more money to create than they contribute to growing the economy.

Other than that, congrats on the paintings sales but again, it's hardly plausible it's thanks to stimulus bill. Maybe you're just painting better now that there's a Democrat in the White House.

January 13, 2010 at 7:32 PM 
Blogger Bob Bohne said...

Gil - LOL. That was pretty funny. But I guess you missed my point. I wasn't insinuating that the government was supplementing the purchase of paintings. I was just observing a possible economic turnaround. Congratulations on the house. Let me know if you need to fill some wall space. I have this great painting of dogs playing poker.

January 13, 2010 at 7:42 PM 

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