Written By : Duane Lester

The White House and the rest of the Democrats want us to understand that despite the high unemployment rate and despite the fact that America has lost 2.7 million jobs since the Stimulus Plan was signed into law, the Stimulus Plan has saved or created over a million jobs. After spending $160 billion, we have a million jobs saved or created. Grab a calculator. Enter 160,000,000,000. Now push divide and enter 1,000,000. Push =.

$160,000 per job. It’s a very simple calculation, but according to the federal government, it’s “calculator abuse:”

The White House argues that the actual job number is actually larger than 640,000 — closer to 1 million jobs when one factors in stimulus jobs added in October and, more importantly, jobs created indirectly, such as “the waitress who’s still on the job,” Vice President Biden said today.

So let’s see. Assuming their number is right — 160 billion divided by 1 million. Does that mean the stimulus costs taxpayers $160,000 per job?

Jared Bernstein, chief economist and senior economic advisor to the vice president, called that “calculator abuse.”

He said the cost per job was actually $92,000 — but acknowledged that estimate is for the whole stimulus package as of the end of 2010.

Is that supposed to be better? A waitress is still on the job because the federal government spent $92,000. That is one heck of a tip.

But what about the waitress’s children? They have to pay the tip. In spades. That’s $92,000 that the government doesn’t have and had to borrow from someone. And even if we didn’t have trillions in debt, they would still have to loot the taxpayer, launder the money and then redistribute it to friends, family and major campaign contributors.

Pardon me if I scoff at the idea of “calculator abuse” when Washington is so uninterested in “taxpayer abuse.”

Cross posted at All American Blogger.

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