The Looming Depression Cannot be Countered with "Pork" Spending

And out of thin air we have............. (4.00 / 1)

Is that irregardless of the facts? Did this author get one of those magic eight balls? As far as I know the OMB has never been within 50% of their projections and this writer, without even one argument prognosticates doom and gloom? I understand that the stories about lemmings going off a cliff is actually a hoax as well.

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by: xteeth @ Tue Jan 27, 2009 at 08:12:42 AM CST

This is bugging me (4.00 / 2)

The Republicans are running around saying the cost of each job created is $250,000. There is an assumption inherent in that analysis that every penny is to create jobs, which is not the case; for example, there is money in the package to increase Pell Grants and to put more money into health care.  Indirectly, job creation will result, but tying every penny to creation of a specific job is just Republican spin being spouted to kill the bill.

So, irregardless, give us your specific proposals?  President Obama says he will listen to all good ideas. If you have ideas to make the proposal better, please share!  



"When you get to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on."  Franklin D. Roosevelt    

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by: Kathy Sullivan 2 @ Tue Jan 27, 2009 at 11:15:03 AM CST

The math here appears to be a bit shaky also (0.00 / 0)

It divides the total recovery package costs, which are going to be expended over a number of years, and divides it into segments of jobs created in one or two years. If you are going to engage in an exercise like this ( which as Kathy Sullivan points out ignores the very real investment component), you should divide money spent in a specific time period by jobs created in that period.

Money spent on things like Pell grants give back over a 40 year period in an enhanced workforce with resulting increased productivity. Same with infrastructure improvements-- we have been living off the Eisenhower era investment in interstates for 50 years. Any investments in broadband should be looked at  with the same long term focus.

"But, in the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false about hope." Si se puede. Yes we can.  

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by: Paul Twomey @ Tue Jan 27, 2009 at 12:39:58 PM CST

I'm not sure that "enhanced workforce" is the goal. (0.00 / 0)

Society needs to transfer accumulated wisdom and information to the next generation just to maintain the status quo.
The failure to do that has resulted in America eating its seed corn, so to speak, and the decrease in the median standard of living is evidence of that.
The heavy consumers of medical care in their forties, fifties and sixties are not going to survive into their eighties and nineties as productive and largely self-supporting members of society.  What they're doing is paying the cost of industrial pollution and contamination.  It would be bad enough if they just died off prematurely; what's worse is that their lives are a saga of suffering and personal degradation which may satisfy the curiosity of medical researchers, but does little to enhance the overall quality of life.

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by: hannah @ Tue Jan 27, 2009 at 13:55:31 PM CST

[ Parent ]

What is the cost when the private sector (4.00 / 1)

creates a job?

An office or a factory floor is bought or expanded. Services including payroll and IT support are added or expanded. If you are creating a lot of jobs where non existed before, the buildings themselves must be constructed or purchased.

The notion that it should cost $75,000 to deliver a $75,000 salary for productive work is pretty bogus. The supporting infrastructure provides values and costs money.

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by: elwood @ Tue Jan 27, 2009 at 12:47:34 PM CST

Our system is set up in such a way (0.00 / 0)

that when a bill must pass, there will be pork in it. It's inevitable.

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by: Alex Gallichon @ Tue Jan 27, 2009 at 13:15:47 PM CST

Specific Suggestions (0.00 / 0)

Jobs, new infrastructure, such as universal broadband access, especially in rural areas, access to and promotion of the tools and resources that enable and support production, including prudent loans to qualified (especially small) businesses to start, hire, and/or expand, job training, trade education, and educational training for productive occupations are a few examples of measures that if undertaken on a massive national scale can lift and/or stabilize this sinking ship.

Direct loans to viable businesses and qualified individuals for mortgages and productive improvements. Bypass the failing banks and deal directly with the borrowers.

These are only a few ideas that come to mind - there are undoubtedly many others. But what MIGHT work requires direct and massive support of the middle class, NOT tax cuts that are supposed to "trickle down" but rarely do, and NOT appropriate and worthy projects, such as Pell Grants and health care that should be part of other legislation, and NOT making up local and state budget shortfalls.

The key is to stimulate, support and encourage from the ground up, not from the top down.

If this stimulus package has any chance of success, it MUST be massive and it MUST concentrate on its primary objective and nothing else.

If it succeeds, we'll have the prosperity to fund these many other probably and largely worthy projects.

Whereas it's true that some of these other projects create jobs, one assumes that those totals are included in the promised overall 3-4 million jobs.

Unfortunately, it seems that this stimulus effort will be larded up with top down tax cuts, and worthy as well as unworthy pork projects that won't contribute much directly to energizing the economy.

It won't work any more than urinating our money away with the TARP bailout did.

One of the commentors suggested that a $75K job costs more than $75K. That's true, but does it have to cost $250K? Plus, jobs are created by those who provide the infrastructure, and presumably are included in the total.

At bottom, this crises requires statesmanship and leadership, not Washington DC business as usual.

I fear we're heading for painful, but sadly avoidable lessons.

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by: IrregardlessNH @ Tue Jan 27, 2009 at 19:00:41 PM CST

we're hemoraging jobs... (4.00 / 1)

Perhaps rhetoric today would classify them as such, but I doubt the Civilian Conservation Corps workers back during FDR's day ought to be reduced to the "pork" charges.

Sincerely, we need jobs.  We need public works projects.  Remember the Minneapolis bridge?  many more infrastructure improvements are needed anyway.  And those projects hire folks.

I don't see that as pork.
I see that as a necessity for these times.


Be the Change you wish to see in the world (Gandhi)

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by: KrisSchultz @ Thu Jan 29, 2009 at 23:50:32 PM CST

Can't remember where I read this (4.00 / 1)

Poor women are not pork.

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by: JimC @ Fri Jan 30, 2009 at 09:50:41 AM CST

[ Parent ]