White House Promises Kept

This AP Fact Check by Calvin Woodward takes exception with Republican claims that the stimulus package generated jobs at a cost of $246,000 a job. The main criticism of this estimate is that not all of the effects, or spending, have been felt yet.

"Hundreds of such projects have been on the books, in which the full value of the contracts is already counted in the spending totals, but few or no jobs have been reported yet because the work is only getting started."

Quite right. Back in January, there were plenty of warnings about how long the process would take. Rather than the 600,000 jobs claimed for just this Summer, the White House's longer term claim is that "The recovery plan will save or create about 3.5 million jobs ..." At a $787 billion price tag for the stimulus package, that comes to a mere $225,000 per job. The only surprise is that the Republicans could not inflate it more. In fact, it looks like looks like the president is delivering on this promise.