Is the amount of Jobs created by Stimulus Plan, immaterial, considering how much money is being spent?

For example...

I was watching CNN Tuesday...

Sen Brown from Massachusetts commented that stimulus plan is not doing much.

A white house aide working with Vice Pres Joe Bidden said that 8.7 billion was spent in Massachusetts and over 9,000 jobs were created...

eh what?!

That is $966,666 dollars spent to create what?? Temporary jobs, or are they even new jobs meaning are they just jobs that were saved???

So the American Govt spends 1 million dollars to create a job. The workers gets paid at most 50-60K and would likely would not be buying new products as he would be thankful that he or she has a job.

Really, I understand that the money is being spent to repair infrastructure and that is all good.

However for the Obama to say it is saving the American economy is silly. The amount of jobs being created is pretty insignificant compared to all the effort that is being put in.

Like this is the kind of spending Obama should stop, because the debt is reaching terrifying heights and the rate Obama is spending... It will likely be more than the total GDP of the country.

He's not saying. Almost every economist is saying it. Some, like nobel prize winner Paul Krugman, says it wasn't enough. These include the economists who advised the previous President to do it as well.

So, hm, who should I listen to? The vast majority of economists, or Mandeep?

I am with you Manny... I am not a fan of government spending, especially when the impact has been as minimal as this. Obama raised spending by 20% in 2009 and it was already too high with Bush. They can't sustain this.. either the debt gets POUNDED or they raise taxes which is the last thing business owners need right now. Either way is big trouble. The stimulus just creates short term benefits... you pay a guy to improve a school or build a rail-line, but after it's done, then what? He spends the money and then it's gone. I am much more comfortable with money in the hands of investors because companies = long term jobs, and companies that make money lead to more investing and more jobs.

What they need is to fix the Medicare/Medicaid problem, like NOW. http://www.usdebtclock.org/ ... Look at the largest budget items counter on the left. The government is spending significantly more on Medicare/Medicaid than defense with two wars going on... It's a total joke. Nobody is making any headway on fixing the Medicare problem because half the Senate is paid off by insurance companies and Obama has been completley hands off with the entire healthcare issue

I love how the "spending freeze" leaves Medicare/Medicaid, Defense, Social Security, Homeland Security, FBI/CIA, and basically everything else substantial off. It's a total PR stunt... whatever he saves here is easily outweighed by the reckless spending everywhere else

The vast majority of Keynesian big government supporting, Democrat voting economists, maybe... there are PLENTY of objections on the other side.

I am the one to respect economists but they always ignore the concept of a "debt". Some say it is unimportant but when the debt of nation starts to eclipses its GDP, it’s time to worry. I know these people know more, but whenever they are asked what about the debt, they pretty much say it is immaterial, heard it live on CNN myself.

We can spend more however even in the future when our budget situation normalizes; the interest payments on the increased debt will swallow up the budget. Then we will be in perpetual deficits unless the govt increases taxes or cuts spending.

We are faced with the same problem here in Canada and the govt has ruled out any extra spending. However, the extra spending has caused additional expenses and increase interest payments. So now, the Govt will be in a deficit for years.

You cannot spend money and hope the budget situation to return to normal as the govt than has to pay extra expenses on all those new programs and projects.

Now I am not saying we shall become fixated on going back to a surplus, but we should see that the stimulus plan is having a minimal effect. I think we are pointlessly spending far too much money and we all pay for it much more in the future.

So as I asked before, how is Obama really doing? I know I got yelled at in the beginning but there were alot less supporters with the second questions.

Now 3rd time is a charm.....

* Are we getting that national health thing he promised?
* Are we out of the war on the date he promised?
* Has he done anything on the Social Security problem?
* Medicare????
* Deficit?????
* and I love how people keep on talking about unemployment at the 10 % level but does anyone talk about what the real unemployment number is with all of the people off of gov't $ but still unemployed and looking for work???? 20 % or 25 %!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!?????

* and I caught him talking about how the companies who got money weren't playing straight and now are just making bigger profits.....is he that naive!!!!!!!!!!!!! he should have gotten more iron clad agreements with them.....

* etc, etc, etc......as I am just wondering..............