It is bugging me that politicians against the stimulus plan speak to the American people like we are a bunch of morons. Don't tell me that the stimulus plan that aim's to create 3 to 4 million new jobs is merely a "spending plan" because you calculated that the cost per job is around $900,000. What kind of fact is that? First of all, even at 4 million jobs for $1 trillion, you are looking at a number between $200k and $300k per job. Second, what the hell kind of point is that supposed to be making anyway? We aren't doing this to create jobs solely for the sake of creating jobs. We are doing this to stimulate the economy. This is by creating jobs and investing in the country's infrastructure (in many way).
Would you rather create jobs at $250,000 per job and have new roads, bridges and schools to show for it - or would you rather create jobs at $100,000 each and get nothing in return for your investment? Sure you can pay people to rake lines in sand and employ three times as many people and the economy will grow - temporarily. Or you can pay a little more for tangible assets that will provide value to the country for many decades to come.
They throw numbers out there like $900k per job that aren't true and even if they were - like that is supposed to mean anything to the average citizen. Ask the average person what the "ideal" cost should be for each new job created. Not only would they have no basis for answering the question, even if they did - there is no right answer.
Try this analogy. A new Interstate interchange was constructed by the DOT in my town for a cost of 50 million. The project created jobs for approximately 120 people for 8 months. The cost per job for that project was $416,000 per new job. Pretty high number, right? But who cares? That is a useless statistic. The point is that a bridge was purchased for 50 million dollars and it created 120 new jobs. If that same 50 million dollars was used to pay people to rake circles in the sand you could employ 1500 people for 1 year to but when it was over you still have a collapsing Interstate interchange to go fix.
The stimulus money is not going to waste. Not only will it create jobs, but it will get us caught up on critical infrastructure work that has had funding put off for a very long time. As we come out of the recession of the forthcoming years, we will be able to focus on paying down our nations debt by running a budget surplus for awhile since our infrastructure needs will be at an improved state.
