President O's $447 billion stimulus, er, I mean jobs bill has been rejected by Congress. Now the pieces are coming up in the Senate, one at a time.
The first was a proposal to give $35 billion to State and Local governments to support salaries for teachers, cops & firefighters. It's paid for by a surtax on people earning more than $1 million a year.
People, when did stimulus come to mean shoveling money to public employee union members only? when did stimulus come to mean tax increases?
According to WAPO, $30 billion of the money would "Support almost 400,000 education jobs for one year".
Notice that the word "support" in there means they are not claiming almost 400,000 new jobs; this is the old "create or preserve" rhetoric.
Suppose the bill really could deliver 400,000 new teaching jobs for one year. At $75,000 per job/year that would be a marvel of government efficiency. But why teachers? why not $37,500 for 800,000 construction workers? Or cut a check for $18,750 to 1.6 million unemployed people selected by lottery? or $9,375 to 3.2 million unemployed people?
This isn't stimulus; this is simple redistribution from a likely pro GOP group to a likely pro Democratic Party group. No wonder the Republicans are against it.
(Yes I know that one can argue schoolteachers have a higher MPC than do "millionaires", but that would be at best a second order effect, and this effect would be bigger if the money went straight to more unemployed people)
