More stimulus?

How's this for stimulus, give me $500,000 and I'll start a business with a bunch of jobs....Where is all of this money going? How's it stimulating, when my company is telling me for the last 3 years, "The economy is so bad we're freezing pay"? Read the original here.

Obama Jobs “Plan”: $300 Billion In Spending
Written By : William Teach

Plan has to be put in quotations, of course, because a) we haven’t actually seen it yet, b) we’ll probably never see it, we’ll just hear about it Thursday night and during press conferences and campaign speeches, a c) we all know it will be the same old tired and failed ideas, per MSNBC: Obama to propose $300 billion to jump-start jobs

The economy weak and the public seething, President Barack Obama is expected to propose $300 billion in tax cuts and federal spending Thursday night to get Americans working again. Republicans offered Tuesday to compromise with him on jobs — but also assailed his plans in advance of his prime-time speech.

According to people familiar with the White House deliberations, two of the biggest measures in the president’s proposals for 2012 are expected to be a one-year extension of a payroll tax cut for workers and an extension of expiring jobless benefits. Together those two would total about $170 billion.

The people spoke on the condition of anonymity because the plan was still being finalized and some proposals could still be subject to change.

The White House is also considering a tax credit for businesses that hire the unemployed. That could cost about $30 billion. Obama has also called for public works projects, such as school construction. Advocates of that plan have called for spending of $50 billion, but the White House proposal is expected to be smaller.

None of these ideas worked back when the Democrats passed their $843 billion Stimulus plan. The best it can do is provide some short term jobs. None of these ideas stimulated commerce which led to increased hiring in the private sector. Remember that $7-$13 extra a week you had in your paycheck? Did it get you to buy anything more than an extra meal a week? How about extending jobless benefits? After extension after extension, the unemployment rate is still over 9%. Tax credit to hire the unemployed? Sure, companies that were going to hire anyhow liked it, but, it obviously did not stimulate extra hiring.

Public works? Interestingly, the recession was said to have officially ended in June 2009, but most Stimulus measures kicked in after that. So, we can say that it was the Bush policies that ended the official recession, but the Obama policies made the economy worse.

Politico reports much the same, and also says he wants to offset these “ideas” with tax increases later.

What we can also expect from Obama’s campaign speech to a joint session of Congress will be these brief ideas, along with raising taxes on evil rich people like himself, patent reform, and free trade agreements (has the White House sent them over to Congress yet?). That, and lots of calls for bipartisanship followed by excoriating Republicans.

Crossed at Pirate’s Cove. Follow me on Twitter @WilliamTeach