1) The “shovel ready” jobs weren’t shovel ready (as Obama himself has admitted), leading to a delay in the stimulating effect;2) The money to save the jobs of “firemen … and policemen … and … teachers” did not just go to firefighters and policemen and teachers. It also went to non-essential bureaucrats (e.g., headquarters paper shufflers, “diversity coordinators”);3) The money bailed out states that were paying unsustainable pensions and benefits, enabling them to keep paying those benefits, so that when the federal subsidy ran out the states couldn’t afford to keep workers on the payroll and laid them off. (, by cutting back on benefits and collective bargaining, could afford to avoid big layoffs, says Morrissey). Wisconsin Note that these criticisms apply even if you think countercyclical Keynesian spending helps (as I do) and that public jobs are a good way to do that (ditto). None of the objections would have applied to a Roosevelt-style WPA that immediately put the unemployed to work on useful construction jobs. They’re criticisms of BHO, not FDR. …P.S.: It would be reductive and predictable for me to point out that all three of these Obama-era problems have a single cause: public employee unions[.]
Let me start by admitting something that many will find unforgivable: I supported the stimulus. I supported the federal government borrowing close to $1 trillion to try to jump start the economy. And even though Obama said it was going to go to “shovel-ready” projects like road construction, I knew at least some of that money was going to go to “rent-seekers” and political supporters of Obama. And I didn’t care. Why? Because even if some of the money was siphoned off to political allies (and at least some is in just about every federal appropriation, no matter the party in charge), it was still going into the economy. One way or another, it was going to be spent. And that would help the economy.
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