Jobs "Created or Saved" in California

Good news from Recovery.gov* about the 110,185 jobs "created or saved" in California by the stimulus spending bill. It's about time, given that previous reports estimated that the state had lost 732,700 jobs over the same period of time. What a turn-around. Read the whole thing. Follow the links.

Our higher-numbered districts (and the unenumerated one) aren’t doing well by the stimulus policy, alas. California congressional districts that do not actually exist created or saved a scant 24.2 jobs. . . Worse, they sucked up $5,740,757 to create or save those 24 jobs (sorry, 24.2 jobs), which works out to $237,221.36 per job per seven months (the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 was passed in February, and the recovery.gov figures are from September) — or $406,665.19 per job per year.

Even assuming that 67% of the cost per job is overhead — federal building maintenance costs, salaries for government employees, payoffs to ACORN and the SEIU, etc. — that means each job must offer an average compensation package of $134,199.51. Wow — where do I sign up to be created or saved?

With the new transparency, it’s easy to see exactly how the administration is able to report such stellar economic improvement so quickly. All I can say is hip hip, chin chin for the One!

Wait a minute. I thought this "stimulus transparency" deal was supposed to be Joe Biden's responsibility. Not the President's. But maybe the Vice President is too busy working on a new pull-out strategy for Afghanistan. You have to also make allowance for the Executive Branch, given the messy bill which was passed by the Pelosi/Reid Congress before anyone could read it, filled with dusty old programs and Democratic "wish lists" from the last couple of decades or so.

Update: in Hollywood alone, 23 million dollars in stimulus money created 21 jobs, according to Recovery.gov.

Other states are reporting similar evidence of deep concern for the people and careful stewardship over their tax dollars by the Administration and Congress:

. . . Over in Minnesota's 27th congressional district, however, it appears to be a bleaker picture for those hoping for a turnaround. The federal government's statistics indicate only 2.5 jobs have been created or saved despite the listed expenditure of $3,159,657 of taxpayer dollars.

Then there's the 13th congressional district which outperformed them all. Hard to believe, but the hard working folks in the 13th congressional district generated five jobs from just $42,109 in stimulus spending.

That would certainly come as news to most Minnesotans, since the 14th, 27th and 57th congressional districts in Minnesota do not exist, except on the Obama Administration's website. Nor does the 00 congressional district listed as spending $404,340 and creating zero jobs.

* " Recovery.gov is the U.S. government’s official website providing easy access to data related to Recovery Act spending and allows for the reporting of potential fraud, waste, and abuse." I guess reporting the fantasy numbers on the site itself could be considered the first report of fraud, waste and abuse. To be fair, however, how much accuracy can you expect from a program which only cost 84 million dollars? Is it really fair to start a satirical campaign to fill congressional seats for all 440 new congressional districts created or make up by Recovery.gov? Note that reporting rules may require states to distort data to make the stimulus numbers look better.

Remember, this is the government which thinks it can do a much better job of running health care than anyone else possibly could.