Dems Yet Another “Stimulus” Package – Billions for “Job Packages” – Flashback: Carters Failed Job Stimulus: 31.8 Billion to Create 1.5 Million Jobs

Democrats in the Congressare putting together a job stimulus package – legislators expect to get that to Obama’s desk by January 2010. It is unknown at this time, how much of the stimulus would fall under deficit spending. According to the Los Angeles Times, it is a matter of urgency to get this stimulus passed:

Having been preoccupied with passing a health care bill, the White House is eager to demonstrate it is sensitive to the economic hardship Americans face. To that end, the White House will host a jobs summit Thursday. And the next day, Obama will travel to Allentown, Pa. -- the first stop in a kind of economic "listening tour."
Polling shows that the health care overhaul is not as important to Americans as an economic recovery that yields jobs. With a midterm election next year, Democrats in control of the White House and Congress can't afford to look out of touch.

A Senate Democratic aide, speaking on condition of anonymity, said, "Democrats have to address the No. 1 concern of their constituents -- and that is, by a long shot, jobs.

"We want to show we get it -- that we're responsible and in tune."

The key points in this particular article: “The White House is eager to demonstrate it is sensitive to the economic hardships Americans face.”, and Polling shows that the health care overall is not as important to Americans as an economic recovery that yields jobs”.

Polling data has not been overly kind to the administration and Congress with the President’s approval currently at 46% and Congressional Democrats at a 7 point deficit behind their Republican counterparts.
The logic, therefore, is to throw more money onto the deficit, in an effort to create a second “stimulus” – while the first “stimulus” has failed – jobs under the first stimulus, were, for all intents and purposes, jobs “saved”, not created.

Additionally, reports of costs per job created or saved are astronomical: A recent headline from the Star-Telegram Speaks to the Problem: “Cost of stimulus jobs in Texas so far: $545,000 per job”. Although figures were taken from the official, flawed, job reporting website: recovery.gov, the Telegram went further in finding data that showed the cost of creating jobs in Texas was, in a word, astronomical.

Granted, the members of Congress and the administration, are political animals, not economist, however, one would think that someone, somewhere would be smart enough to figure out this whole stimulus won’t work. It didn’t work in 1976, when then President Jimmy Carter, worked out a 31.8 Billion dollar job package that was estimated to produce 1.5 Million jobs. It failed within six months. Most of the money disbursed was used to re-hire layed off government employees, and the private sector jobs continued to decline.

It is apparent that the administration and members of Congress have no sense of history either, or are so wedded to their slogan “tax cuts for the rich”, that they are willing to further endanger the nation’s economic stability. What is perhaps, most mind-boggling is that, in an effort to produce polling that may help their efforts in 2010, and they are, once again, embarking on the idiocy of “job stimulus” through deficit spending – which, in the end, will produce higher unemployment, the dollar, already in the latrine, will be further damaged, causing the loss of more private sector jobs.