It’s Not Fair to Judge Obama Administration By Earlier Rosy Projections for Job Growth?

Yet, we are supposed to believe Obama’s projections for the cost and benefits of Health Care or Cap and Tax?

The bloom is coming off the rose. Obama’s poll numbers continue to slide across the board. Rasmussen’s approval index has a gap of -8. Only 48% of those asked to rate his handling of the economy in a CBS July 13 poll approved of Obama’s handling of the economy. 44% disapproved.

Those trends are likely to worsen for Obama as stories like this one in Time Magazine begin to sink in with the average public which pays little attention to the daily ebb and flow of events:

Obama’s Stimulus Plan: Failing by Its Own Measure
By Stephen Gandel
Time Magazine
Tuesday, Jul. 14, 2009

The $787 billion stimulus plan is turning out to be far less stimulating than its architects expected.

Back in early January, when Barack Obama was still President-elect, two of his chief economic advisers — leading proponents of a stimulus bill — predicted that the passage of a large economic-aid package would boost the economy and keep the unemployment rate below 8%. It hasn’t quite worked out that way. Last month, the jobless rate in the U.S. hit 9.5%, the highest level it has reached since 1983.

The two advisers who wrote the paper, Christina Romer and Jared Bernstein, went on to land key jobs in the Obama Administration. Romer is the head of Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers, and Bernstein is the chief economist and economic-policy adviser to Vice President Joe Biden. And the stimulus bill that both economists championed became law in mid-February. What has not come to pass, however, is the boom in job creation that Romer and Bernstein predicted. A little over a month ago, the Administration said the stimulus bill had created or saved 150,000 jobs. That’s a far cry from the 3 million to 4 million jobs that Romer and Bernstein foresaw back in January.
…
Administration officials have also insisted that it’s unfair to judge the effectiveness of the stimulus by projections they made back in January since the recession has turned out to be worse than what most economists predicted even just six months ago.

In a report released on July 13, Romer’s Council of Economic Advisers says the stimulus bill is creating opportunities for workers in health care, education and energy. The report reiterates that the economists believe the stimulus plan will create 3.5 million jobs by the end of 2010.

So now they are saying they goofed in January, but trust them now? Oh please!

In a related story, The Politico suggests that Obama’s earlier rosy scenario has turned “thorny:”

President Barack Obama’s economic forecasts for long-term growth are too optimistic, many economists warn, a miscalculation that would mean budget deficits will be much higher than the administration is now acknowledging.

The White House will be forced to confront the disconnect between its original, upbeat predictions and the mainstream consensus about how the economy is likely to perform in a new budget forecast to be unveiled next month.
…
A series of POLITICO interviews in recent days with independent economists of varied political stripes found widespread disdain for Obama’s first round of assumptions, with some experts invoking such phrases as “rosy” and “fantasy.”

I’ve already shared with readers the following chart taken from Obama’s own economic projections in January:

John Boehner, Republican Leader in the House of Representatives asks: “Where are the jobs?”

Today, Leader Boehner discovered some of those jobs. From the Leader’s blog:

At a Cost of $8 Million per Job, “Stimulus” Funds Yields 50 Jobs in New Hampshire

Today’s New Hampshire Union-Leader reported that “More than $400 million in federal stimulus money has come to New Hampshire this year” which has yielded “a total of 50 jobs…34 of them full time.” That works out to $8 million per job created in New Hampshire by the Democrats’ $1 trillion “stimulus.” At that rate, the Democrats would have to spend $16,000,000,000,000 to create 2 million jobs nationwide, roughly the number of jobs that have been lost in America since the President signed the “stimulus” into law in February.

But those “stimulus” jobs in New Hampshire are temporary, not permanent, as the Union-Leader also noted:

After a tough budget year, both Democrats and Republicans are wary of creating jobs that have to be funded long into the future. Members of both parties said they expect the jobs to end when the funding ends in 27 months.

As Boehner points out in this floor speech (video) not one member of Congress read the stimulus bill which was considered so urgent that it had to be passed immediately upon presentation even though Obama didn’t bother to sign it until days later.

More Stimulus Jobs in Creating Signs Advertising Obama’s Economic Recovery?

I found it difficult to believe that only relative handfuls of jobs have been created. Even though Obama’s own numbers show only 150,000 new jobs, surely there must be more. So I looked and found this example of economic recovery. Obama’s plan is putting sign makers back to work advertising signs for construction projects, make that UNION construction projects.

Your tax dollars at work!

Time to Admit Obama’s plan was NOT an economic stimulus plan!

As I warned at the time, Obama’s stimulus plan had little to do with job creation. It was a Democrat Christmas tree loaded with goodies and payoffs to their supporters in the Unions, ACORN and liberal special interest groups. That’s why they had to rush the bill through before more of the American people had the chance to read it.

But as Abraham Lincoln once said:

You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.
–Abraham Lincoln

More and more Americans are finding out that the warnings Republicans made during the 2008 presidential election were not scaremongering but based on the certainty of who and what Obama really is.

Obama is more interested in rewarding his political supporters than he is in doing what is right for the vast majority of the American people! And we will all pay a heavy price for the voters who willfully blinded themselves to that reality!