May 13 2009
NY Times Finally Notices Democrats Not Stimulating Jobs!
As a recently deputized monitor for the stimulus efforts by the Federal Government, I have been posting regularly on the fact the ‘shovel ready’ stimulus money to create jobs passed last February is stuck in the sluggish federal bureaucracy. As of the end of April, across the 5 departments and one agency (NASA) I have been monitoring, only 12% of the funds allocated to these entities (making up 1/3rd of the stimulus job creating money) is allocated to programs, and a measly 0.03% has actually been spent (click graph to enlarge)
- $105.336 billion as been budgeted (left columns)
- So far $12.739 billion as been obligated to programs and projects (12.1%) (middle columns)
- Only $0.031 billion has gone into the economy to create jobs (right columns)
Well today the NY Times finally woke up and reported on the utter failure of the stimulus bill to create jobs:
Nearly three months after President Obama approved a $787 billion economicstimulus package, intended to create or save jobs, the federal government has paid out less than 6 percent of the money, largely in the form of social service payments to states.
Although administration officials say the program is right on schedule, they have actually spent relatively little so far.
Well duh! Glad to see these professional journalist wake up from their stupor. And what does that mean for America? Rising unemployment:
What we have here is a failure of liberal policies on a scale that boggles the mind. Trillions of debt, and nothing to show for it.
I have linked to your post from Obamanomics which is a preponderance of articles that show the economy is not being stimulated.
They probably needed to use it to pay social security in February. For the first time in history, Social Security payments exceeded tax revenue. That means that Social Security needed to take a bond and go to the Treasury and cash it in. Where did Treasury get the cash to pay Social Security in February? My guess is it came out of the “Stimulus” money.
Many people mistakenly believe that there is some pile of cash someplace called “The Social Security Trust Fund” but that isn’t the case. When Social Security takes in more than it pays out, it is required to buy Treasury bonds with it. In other words, they are forced to lend the cash to Congress. Then get back a bond which is an “IOU”. When payouts exceed revenue, they must take one of those bonds back to Treasury for cash. That had never happened before February of this year.
President Bush warned of this. The Democrats basically called him delusional saying that it would remain solvent till 2040 and he was “fear mongering” and the problem existed “only in the minds of Republicans”. Well, here we are. The Democrats ignored the problem. Bush warned of this in 2005. The blame for this lies squarely with the Democrats in Congress.
The government is incapable of making money or creating jobs other that expanding the numbers of government employees. The government can run nothing, but they do manage to ruin almost everything they touch. Career politicians in the halls of congress or in the state houses have little ability or experiance in running anything short of their mouths.
I still think the Dems have deliberately “timed” the actual majority spending of stimulus $$ to coincide with 2010 election cycle so they can claim to have saved the economy…
Maybe they need to start selling some of that federal land in Alaska.
Toes192, Massive Government spending would also tilt the economic field in terms of interest rates, inflation and value of the dollar (inflation on imported products).
Closing Detroit down.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sI1TPJ4xURI
They’r selling make believe and we don’t buy that here.
The GOP and the Stimulus Bust
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/the-gop-and-the-stimulus-bust/2/
excerpt:
So, the bottom line: we have spent a trillion dollars (including interest) largely on nothing. We aren’t getting jobs — at least none that we can verify. We aren’t getting infrastructure. But we did get a mound of debt.
Why is Chrysler closing down dealerships that are in good shape (top 2% sales nationwide)? Can anyone tell me how that makes sense? One of the Dealer’s was on Fox and Friends this morning and made that claim.