Colonel Saunders “Saved Or Created” 2 Million Chickens!

One of the most ludicrous assertions of the Obama Administration is the claim that they’ve “saved or created” jobs with their policies. Why is it ludicrous? Setting aside the fact that the government’s massive deficit spending, new taxes, takeovers of private companies, and threats of huge new expenses for companies via the Cap and Trade and health care bills have undoubtedly terrified many businesses into hiring freezes, the phrase “saved or created” is made up from scratch. There’s no math behind it. There’s no formula. There’s no realistic way to determine it. It’s just whatever number the Obama Administration happens to be making up at the time. The newest imaginary number? It’s 2 million:

President Barack Obama is trumpeting a new White House estimate that his top economist calls “stunning”: His stimulus plan has already created or saved up to 2 million jobs.

The analysis is part of the administration’s quarterly report to Congress on the controversial $787 billion package of spending and tax cuts he signed weeks after taking office.

Republicans have denounced the stimulus plan as an expensive flop, pointing to a national unemployment rate stuck at 10 percent and December figures showing the economy shed 85,000 more jobs.

But the report from the President’s Council of Economic Advisers said the economy is a lot better off than it would have been without the stimulus. Citing its own analysis plus a range of private sector summaries, the council estimated the annual growth rate last year would have been roughly 2 percentage points lower, and there would have been 1.5 million to 2 million fewer jobs.

…The White House jobs analysis said the actual number of jobs saved or created by direct cash grants comes to 640,000. But it stressed the figures are only current through the end of September and do not include “multiplier” effects such as increased spending ripples through the economy.

However, the administration’s method of counting jobs has been controversial, and starting with fourth-quarter figures, it’s adopting a new one – giving up trying to determine if a job has been created or saved, and reporting only that it’s funded by the stimulus. The change was ordered quietly last month in a memo to federal agencies.

The new rules follow analyses by The Associated Press and others that uncovered flaws that overstated the actual job numbers by thousands.
The administration says the new counting method streamlines the process and responds to complaints from grant recipients that the reporting rules were too complex.

Great “saved and created” moments throughout history.

* Colonel Saunders saved or created 2 million chickens with his chain of restaurants.

* In 300, the Spartans saved or created several thousand Persians by standing and fighting against them at Thermopylae.

* Ted Kennedy saved or created 26 political staffers when he went off the bridge at Chappaquiddick.

You get the idea.

If Obama really wants to “save or create” some jobs, he should lower taxes, cut red tape, decrease the power of the federal government, and stop trying to turn America into Venezuela.

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