White House’s Council of Economic Advisors Report: a brief review by Midknight Review

We will make this report short and sweet. Understand that it will be largely ignored by the Marxist Media for obvious reasons.

The Economic Advisory Council reports:

1. The White House wants you to believe that GDP is averaging a growth rate from month to month of 2.3 to 3.2 percent. But "real GDP" is closer to 1.8 percent and, on an average including 2009, it is below zero. See our source at National Statistics.

2. A second point found in the preface of the report is the stated fact that the stimulus was only "temporary" and its effects are diminishing. In fact, they were never all that apparent. How could it be when only 3.5% of the monies allocated in the stimulus were to be spent on job creation? (our source on this is the government, itself).

3. In its opening comments, the report reminds the reader that the economy was" losing 750,000 jobs per month" -- a statistic that was true for only one month during the recession.

4. The report frequently refers to ". . . the unprecedented accountability and transparency provisions . . . . " of the Stimulus Act. Of course, just the opposite is true. There is, in fact, absolutely no official accounting for the nearly 1 trillion dollars spent. On this point, I do not need to make a list because "no accounting" means exactly what it says. I suppose the official accounting of the Stimulus will happen immediately after the Dems and Obama decide to pass a budget. We have not had an annual budget since October of 2009.

As an example of the opaque nature of the "unprecedented accountability" embedded in the Stimulus Act are the questions surrounding the claim that the Stimulus has "created or saved 2.6 million to 3.8 million" jobs. One question that is never answered -- because none exists -- has to do with how many jobs were actually created and how many have survived the test of time. Statistically, I suggest that the number of permanent and meaningful jobs created by the stimulus is . . . . . . . zero. Don't agree? Prove me wrong. Indeed, the economy is creating jobs, but none of those jobs are the result of the stimulus. Remember, the report under review makes the claim that its legislative provisions were "temporary." So too, were its results. . . . of course.

4. On page 1 of the report, it touts "spending and tax reductions" while, at the same time, the Administration is resisting the importance of "spending and tax reductions" in the current debate regarding raising the debt ceiling. Go figure. Once again, we see an administration talking out of both sides of its mouth.

5. Finally, the report documents the fact that each job "created" cost the American tax payer $278,000 per job. the sad truth in this statistic is found in the reported fact that had there been no stimulus, there would have been just as many jobs reported - if not more (see Weekly Standard). Turns out that if the Feds had given everyone who benefited from the $278,000 expenditure --- they they had given each benefactor $100,000, they would have save hundreds of thousands of dollars.