From Katie Pavlich at Town Hall:
An extensive new study conducted by Timothy Conley from the University of Western Ontario, Canada Economics Department and Bill Dupor of Ohio State University Economics Department, shows the trillion dollar boondoggle known as the stimulus bill, which President Obama has credited over and over again for “saving and/or creating” thousands of jobs, actually killed 1 million private sector jobs.
This paper uses variation across states to estimate the number of jobs created/saved as a result of the spending component of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). The key sources of identification are ARRA highway funding and the intensity of state sales tax usage.
We estimate the Act created/saved 450 thousand government-sector jobs and destroyed/forestalled one million private sector jobs…
The story goes on to note how State and local governments used the stimulus money to prevent layoffs of government employees – using it, that is, to plug gaps in State and local budgets caused by declining tax revenues. The problem, of course, is that government jobs don’t create wealth – they don’t, that is, create the basis for self-funding, as a private sector job does. Pretty much the whole stimulus program was worthless as far as economic growth goes…and will probably be rated as destructive because it piled on more debt in an already bankrupt nation.
Additionally, by taking money out of the private economy and funnel in it through the government rat-hole, the stimulus prevented the creation of private sector jobs. There really is only so much money to go around and every cent in government hands is a cent not in private hands. If people are putting their money in to government bonds being sold to repave an existing highway (which is all we in Nevada ever saw from the stimulus), then it isn’t being invested in a man who wants to start or expand a business. Unionized government employees continued to draw their paycheck (and pay union dues to be used for Democrat campaigns), but that doesn’t have anywhere near the economic power of someone starting a new business. You pave a road, you get a paved road – you start a business, and you might create dozens of jobs which never existed before.
Ronald Reagan said that government isn’t the solution, it is the problem – and here’s your proof.
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