This isn’t fake news. Read the story yourself at The Huntington Post. The study by the Congressional Budget Office is quite serious. They say that extending jobless benefits for 2 million workers in the fiscal cliff resolution bill will create 300,000 jobs.
For each $1 spent there’s an increase in economic activity of $1.10.
This sounds better than a perpetual motion machine. Then you realize the extra $0.10 comes from the poor folks savings accounts or home equity loans or credit card debts.
The government gives them just enough hope to string out their financial situation to the max. I’m quite sure the eggheads at the CBO know exactly how many assets these people have and exactly what it will take to rid them of everything.
Obama loves wealth redistribution. Wealth destruction is even better.
The administration has long held that jobless benefits is one of the most efficient ways to stimulate the economy. It puts hard cash into people’s hands and they, by definition, must spend it to make ends meet.
None of this is cash infusion to banks who then just sit on the money or invest it in low risk bonds or Treasury notes. It’s even better than infrastructure spending for more union jobs because there are no exorbitant benefits packages or high salaries to pay up on.
Just real money for groceries and the bare necessities.
The logic is inescapable, you have to admit. I like how this whole study establishes a hierarchy about how best to spend money to stimulate the economy. Real people are at the top of the list followed by businesses and, lastly, unions.
I wonder how the Democrats are going to weasel their way out of that dichotomy.
Personally, I prefer the old depression era Public Works Projects. They do everything at the same time – improve the infrastructure, help the unions (who can oversee and manage the work of unskilled workers, mostly young adults I presume) and give everybody jobs.
I say we grab Obama’s $50 billion in “infrastructure spending,” add it to the jobless benefits package and create ourselves 2 million new jobs.
Those 2 million new jobs will, by extension, create the 300,000 new jobs the CBO study wants.
Game on.
