Wonk Room » Projects Ridiculed By Wall Street Journal Would Create 100 Jobs At One-Tenth the Cost Of Bush Tax Cuts

Projects Ridiculed By Wall Street Journal Would Create 100 Jobs At One-Tenth the Cost Of Bush Tax Cuts

By Guest Blogger on Feb 4th, 2009 at 12:00 pm

Projects Ridiculed By Wall Street Journal Would Create 100 Jobs At One-Tenth the Cost Of Bush Tax Cuts

Our guest blogger is Adam Jentleson, Communications and Outreach Director for the Hyde Park Project at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

Today, a story in the Wall Street Journal examined “Ready to Go,” a report by the U.S. Conference of Mayors listing “shovel-ready” projects that could get off the ground as soon as the cities receive federal funds. While not explicitly stated, the gist of the Journal story was that many of the projects were wasteful, highlighting things like Frisbee golf courses and neon signs.

Buried in the story was the fact that the ostensibly frivolous proposals it identifies would create 100 jobs:

At a total cost of $7.8 million, that’s $78,000 per job – one-tenth of the cost of every job created by the Bush tax cuts, which spent $871,000 per job (and that figure doesn’t even take into account the last few months of massive job losses).

But the fact that targeted spending – like the projects the mayors are proposing – could create jobs ten times more efficiently than Bush-style tax cuts is not stopping conservatives like Rep. Eric Cantor, Sen. John McCain and Sen. Jim DeMint from beating the drum for more of the same Bushonomics.

Comments
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One Response to “Projects Ridiculed By Wall Street Journal Would Create 100 Jobs At One-Tenth the Cost Of Bush Tax Cuts”

Brad Says:

Also, there’s the point that building dog parks, repairing tennis courts, buying police motorcycles, are what mayors are supposed to do.

All of the “frivolous” projects are pretty straightforward tourism/quality of life/community safety projects that generate major multipliers in home value and local economic activity (if we are to look at questions like this from a purely economic lens).

It’s certainly possible that the cops in Shreveport don’t need motorcycles, but there’s no way by looking at one-line descriptions of these items we’d know.

Classic inside-the-Beltway arrogance.
February 4th, 2009 at 12:08 pm