The Obama administration has spent more than $5 million for each “green” job created under the 2009 stimulus fiasco.
As reported by the Washington Post this morning:
A $38.6 billion loan guarantee program that the Obama administration promised would create or save 65,000 jobs has created just a few thousand jobs two years after it began, government records show.
The program — designed to jump-start the nation’s clean technology industry by giving energy companies access to low-cost, government-backed loans — has directly created 3,545 new, permanent jobs after giving out almost half the allocated amount, according to Energy Department tallies…
In addition to guaranteeing loans for renewable-energy projects, the Energy Department has been meting out grants from a separate, less-controversial $33.7 billion appropriation it received as part of the 2009 economic stimulus bill. So far, the department has given out $18.1 billion from that fund…
Obama has spent almost 47% of the $38.6 billion to create 5.4% of the promised jobs. This works out to $5,077,574 per job created!
“I wonder if, allowing for change in the value of the dollar, FDR’s expenditures for job creation in the 1932-34 period (e.g. the NRA and the CCC) would fare any better.”
The economic evidence is that they did not work, but putting that aside, 1933 was a much different world than the 21st century. In the 1930s it was still plausible to hand a man a shovel and point to a place where he was to dig. No skills, Not much capital required (the shovel). In Century XXI, getting something, like a road bed, dug requires big expensive machines run by trained and experienced operator. Lots of skills, Lots of capital.
The chattering class that runs the Democrat Party operates on pure nostalgia, and has yet to wrap its hive mind around these simple facts. Shovel ready projects? What were they talking about.
Big government is seldom the answer to any problem. But the fact is that it does not matter how good a program is (SS, Medicaid, Wars in the middle east, school lunches, etc), we are broke as a nation. We are worse then broke, we are in debt and we may never be able to pay it off. Again, even programs that you agree with, we do not have the money to pay for them unless we print more funny money to do so.
Just a general comment: most posts I read on this blog are very well thought out, well worded, and nearly always civil, even when the author presents an opposing opinion. That is how this should work. Thank you.
I meant to say “fewer dollars,” not “few dollars.”
Please forgive.
@ Dave Oliphant:
There are some who make a convincing case that FDR’s job creation efforts were just as wrongheaded as are President Obama’s. And I fully recognize that your comment didn’t deal with the rightness or wrongness of either instance. However, I would really like to know how the cost per job compares, then and now, adjusted for inflation. I’m guessing that FDR “created” more jobs with few dollars, even adjusted dollars.
While I hold no brief for AGW and the idea of CO2 being the cause of GW, I wonder if, allowing for change in the value of the dollar, FDR’s expenditures for job creation in the 1932-34 period (e.g. the NRA and the CCC) would fare any better.
When will the left wake up and realize that, what looks good on paper, doesn’t always work in real life? I gave the stimulus plan a chance to work. Didn’t bad-mouth it, but after 18 plus months… it’s obvious… FAILURE!!! Our Government needs to admit as much, and stop the insanity….
I am not seeing anything positive, economically or environmentally, come out of the environmentalist proselytes’ insistence on global doom. There is no potential for this any longer – it is inevitable unless we all toe the line and sacrifice everything we are used to, regardless of the currently tangible global economic collapse.
So, as Western nations do, throw money at it. All fixed! And the circle begins again….
And, just where do we apply for these jobs. Oh, I forgot, you must be in a Union.