WASHINGTON — It’s enough to make Bernie Madoff blush.
But not the federal government.
The Obama administration boasted yesterday that with $16 billion taken from you and given to others, 30,383 working Americans owe a hearty thanks of gratitude for their jobs.
Even the Obama-fawning press had to do the math and could not avoid pointing out that with $2.2 billion already out the door, it comes to $71,500 per job. That’s a pretty costly stimulus.
Struggling small businesses all around this country could have created three times that many jobs with that much money.
Obama’s Stimulus Sorcerers have cooked the books from the start to dramatically pad the number of jobs “created” by including some number of jobs allegedly “saved” by their economic sorcery.
Calculating the number of jobs “saved” — then taking credit for them — requires no real proof. But you better be able to keep a straight face, and it’s best if you carry the heart of a common criminal inside your chest.
Take one of this year’s most astonishingly successful federal-stimulus contracts touted on the administration’s Web site, a grant for a Head Start program in Danville, Va.
With less than $35,000, the Obama administration managed to create or save 50 jobs in Danville, they boast.
No one was more mystified by this claim than the man who keeps the books for the Community Improvement Council, which won the federal grant.
“It hasn’t created jobs, but it’s helped improve 50 jobs,” Roy Garner explained.
The money has gone for staff training, pay raises and playground repair.
Wanting to be helpful, Garner added, “It’s helped prepare 50 people for keeping their jobs.”
But asked if any of the jobs were on the chopping block before the federal government arrived on the scene with all our money, Garner replied simply, “No.”
So, in this great Ponzi scheme, the federal government prints out whatever money it wants, carefully cooks books from the start and just makes up numbers out of thin air.
Bernie Madoff never had it this good.