How They Know the Stimulus Will Create Jobs

Because the government said so!

“What we would be required to do would be, for the first time, increase the level of benefit for part-time workers,” [South Carolina Gov. Mark] Sanford told “FOX News Sunday.” “We can’t pay for the benefits already in the program, but to get the stimulus money, we’ve got to increase the program’s size and scale.”

The White House says Sanford’s state, which has the third highest unemployment rate in the nation, would be eligible for $8 billion from the spending bill, which administration officials say would create 50,000 jobs. Sanford said that’s not how job creation works.

Basically, the stimulus bill contains an semi-unfunded federal mandate. States that accept federal money – on a supposedly temporary basis – to prop up unemployment benefits would have to permanently change their rules to allow part time workers to collect unemployment. Sweet, three day workweek here I come!

It’s getting harder and harder to ignore the feeling that the election, the new administration and its media lapdogs, and the “stimulus” policy itself are some kind of collective emotional reaction to the banking crisis, the Bush years, or both. Plan accordingly.