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Politics : The Obama - Clinton Disaster -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: GROUND ZERO™ who wrote (34148)	7/22/2010 9:57:29 AM
From: Bill	2 Recommendations Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 103300

If Bush had done that, for an anti-abortion clause, they would have been looking to impeach.

To: GROUND ZERO™ who wrote (34148)	7/24/2010 10:50:08 PM
From: Hope Praytochange	Respond to of 103300

Crisis Economics N. GREGORY MANKIW nationalaffairs.com At first glance, the Obama administration would seem to be taking such an empirical approach. In an attempt to "know" as much as possible about the consequences of the stimulus bill, the administration has been compiling data to measure its effects. Indeed, the vaunted stimulus web site (recovery.gov) claims to provide state-level job-creation "data," reported to two decimals of accuracy. In reality, however, this ostensible effort at transparency is actually the least credible part of the whole case for the 2009 stimulus bill. For one thing, the reporting errors involved in the data collection are enormous, as hardly anyone accurately fills out the government's questionnaires about the jobs "saved or created" with stimulus money. Some employers, for instance, have counted money used to provide pay raises to existing employees as "creating" jobs. Thus the Wall Street Journal reported last November that the Mid-Willamette Valley Community Action Agency in Oregon had claimed to create 205 jobs with its $397,761 in stimulus money — spending less than $2,000 per "new" job. The results of gathering economic data this way can be downright comical. A shoe-store owner in Kentucky who sold boots to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (for work on a project made possible by stimulus funds) claimed to have created nine jobs with $889 — a feat that would certainly make him the most efficient job creator in the country. The store owner apparently reasoned that he was creating one job for every pair of boots he sold the Army; after all, a soldier could not go to work on the project without a pair of boots. The episode received attention only because a reporter discovered the ridiculous claim, and the owner then asserted that he had been confused by the government form. The administration has nevertheless accepted such reports, using them as the basis of their stimulus evaluations.