Wednesday, February 3, 2010

It is time to sober up

Aside from not trusting administration officials on their estimates, the big question that should be on everyone's mind is what happens when the stimulus funds are withdrawn? Eventually they will. What happens then? We will be left with a massive fiscal hangover, I bet.

One thing is for certain: The first jobs tally, which showed 640,000 jobs were created, contained numerous errors. After that October report, the administration changed the criteria for counting stimulus-funded jobs. The goal was to make it simpler for recipients to accurately report headcounts.

Recipients no longer have to determine whether a job was "created" or "saved" by stimulus funds, only that it was "funded" by the Recovery Act. Also, the reports only track jobs on a quarterly basis instead of keeping a running total.

Even with these changes, it's still a challenge to determine exactly how many jobs stimulus has funded, experts said. It will come as no surprise if more mistakes are found.

Also, the little piggies that are benefiting from feeding at the public trough are going to squeal once it comes time to wean:

Gov. Deval Patrick, a Democrat, touted stimulus' impact on the alternative energy sector, saying the state will increase wind power 10-fold and solar power 15-fold by next year. The number of solar companies has quadrupled and their employment doubled.

1 comment:

Harrison said...

Good point. Few new jobs have been created, only certain jobs have been re-funded. When that funding ends you will see a fiscal disaster take place as states have used the federal money to postpone making the tough budgetary reforms necessary.