To quell concerns of constituents that the stimulus plan will do nothing but enslave future generations to foreign creditors and inflation the Administration has enlisted the help of the stimulus recipients (the needy greedy governors) by asking them to round up their guesstimates of how many jobs Federal money created.
Good thing we have plenty of bored economists and statisticians to point out the inevitable inaccuracies in employment statistics that will result from government clerks who can barely flip burgers at Mickey D's attempting to cook the books.
President Barack Obama had promised that the stimulus plan would save or create 3.5 million jobs. Republicans have criticized the plan and the reliability of the administration's numbers.
The latest Wall Street Journal/NBC poll suggests growing public doubts, with 39% of those surveyed saying the stimulus is a "bad idea," up from 27% in January.
Meanwhile, some state officials worried about how they were supposed to count jobs credited to the stimulus. Now, the White House Office of Management and Budget has given states guidance calming these concerns.
Recipients won't be asked to grapple with complicated estimates, he added. Instead, they may use their best guess whether a job would have been created or saved in the absence of a recovery plan, and to not count it if they are uncertain.
Philip Mattera, research director for the economic development research group Good Jobs First, said the method appeared to be "a bit impressionistic" and presented pitfalls. |
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