"It profits me but little that a vigilant authority always protects the tranquillity of my pleasures and constantly averts all dangers from my path, without my care or concern, if this same authority is the absolute master of my liberty and my life."

--Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America

Thursday, June 21, 2012

Job Creation?

I don't know, but this seems a little bit, well... stupid:

The Obama administration spent $10 billion to create 355 renewable energy jobs per year, according to testimony offered Tuesday before Congress by a Congressional Research Services expert.
Asked by Rep. Cory Gardner (R., Colo.) “how many jobs were created” in 2009 and 2010 under the 1603 renewable energy grant program authorized by the Obama administration, a CRS specialist in public finance admitted that $10 billion was spent to create 3,666 construction jobs over a two-year period–and only 355 jobs per year going forward.
Dr. Molly Sherlock, the CRS specialist, first said the jobs total would depend on the type of job–and differentiated between “induced,” “direct,” and  ”indirect” jobs–before Gardner asked for a straight number.
“I just want to know how many jobs were created,” Gardner said during the hearing.
“If you’re looking at the direct jobs, this one estimate has direct jobs created at 3,666 in the construction phase, and direct jobs created at 355,” Sherlock said. “Direct jobs would just be the construction jobs and the ongoing operations and maintenance jobs. But if you wanted to look at the supporting jobs in other industries then you’d want to look at the other figures.”
“So for direct jobs—just if we look at the first year, this is average jobs per year, it’s 355 jobs per year—in two years, 355 jobs created a year, $10 billion?” Gardner asked.
“That would be jobs per year going forward,” Sherlock responded, “so these would be jobs that would be retained, average jobs per year going forward, yes.”
“For $10 billion?” Gardner clarified.
“Yes,” Sherlock said.

OK, now I realize that this may take some arithmetic, which is hard for government workers.   But 355 jobs for $10 billion works out to about a little under $30 million per job!   Even if the 3666 temporary construction jobs were "created" and permanent, you'd still be looking at something just under $3 million per job.

Let's put that in perspective.   A decent middle-class job, nothing fancy, but well-paying for people who would otherwise be out of work, might be something like $40,000 a year.   Add in a decent benefit package and let's put the total cost of labor at $60,000 per year.   Let's call these decent middle-class jobs "new teachers" or "new police officers" or "new firemen," since the Democrats only seem to care about those type of public service jobs.   But so be it.   I could hire 1,000 new teachers, policemen or firemen at that rate for $60 million a year.   I could hire 10,000 for $600 million.   I could hire 100,000 for $6 billion.   So I could hire roughly 166,000 for $10 billion.  

Why aren't the public employee unions and teachers' unions screaming about how Obama's efforts to line the pockets of his wealthy cronies in "green energy" are robbing "the children" and endangering our neighborhoods?

Obama '12 - What's Good for My Donors Is Good For America!

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