Last week, our state’s junior Senator, Ma’am Barbara Boxer, traveled with great fanfare to San Diego to boast about how many jobs the “stimulus” created only to have a news organization debunk her claim. They found that the $787-billion bill she so energetically supported had created a grand total of one new job in the state’s second largest city. Well, now other news organizations are examining the Administration claims of jobs created by the Democrats’ budget-busting bill and finding that, well, just like Ma’am, they’ve been inflating their numbers.
They haven’t even done the most rudimentary of fact checks, with their site claiming job creation in non-existent congressional districts. Can you imagine the media outcry had the Bush Administration talked about its efforts in non-existent jurisdictions? It would be another sign of W’s stupidity. The latest figures show 110,185 jobs created in the Golden State (that’s 226,215 fewer jobs created (or saved) that the total number of jobs lost since Ma’am voted for the “stimulus”).
But, let’s look a little more closely at that 110,185 number. David Freddoso and Mark Hemingway found 75,343 bogus jobs in that listing, including as least (but probably more than) 22,000 in the Golden Setate.
Administration officials claim that federal stimulus dollars let California State University (CSU) “retain about 26,000 full-time-equivalent positions . . . more than half of CSU’s work force“, but in reality according to CSU spokeswoman Claudia Keith said Friday, “The jobs were retained, not saved,” with the CSU using stimulus money paying “for the jobs for a time, but that many of the jobs wouldn’t have otherwise disappeared.” No wonder the Democrats are using the expression created or saved, it makes it easier to fudge their numbers.
So, let’s say that of those 26,000, 12.2% (current unemployment rate in Golden State) really were saved (’cause they sure weren’t created). That’s 3,172. We’ll deduct that number from 26,000 to get 22,828 jobs that don’t belong in the number created by the “stimulus.”
In San Joaquin, “The Regional Rail Commission double-counted 125 jobs it had created with a stimulus grant.” So, let’s add 125 to the 22,828 above. That’s 22,953 which we subtract from 110,185, so we get 87,232 jobs created (or saved) in the Golden State. And we still haven’t examined all the supposedly new (or saved) jobs the Administration claims.
Oh, yeah, that 87,232 number, well, it’s about a quarter-million fewer than the number of jobs lost since Mrs. Boxer voted for a bill which she told us would create jobs in California.
The month Ma’am was sworn in as a United States Senator, the unemployment rate in California peaked (for the 1990s) at 10.4%. It’s now nearly 2 points higher. No wonder she misrepresented the number of jobs the “stimulus” created when she made her first trip in more than two years to her jurisdiction’s second largest city.
Boxer does seem to have a knack for fiction. Let’s give her more time to devote to writing fiction by replacing her in the Senate.
I just love the site! It’s fabulous!