Where are the jobs?

My column for the West Bend Daily News is online.  It’s called, “Where are the jobs?”  Here’s a bit:

Primarily, the stimulus bill was passed on a promise. That promise was made by President Obama when he said, “the single most important part of this Economic Recovery and Reinvestment Plan is the fact that it will save or create up to 4 million jobs – because that’s what America needs most right now.” America had been shedding jobs for months and the stimulus bill offered the promise of reversing that trend.

   Let us set aside for a moment the weasel language used in that promise. The President intentionally said “save or create” because it is impossible to verify how many jobs the stimulus bill might “save.” That’s the political relief valve for Obama when things go wrong. Still, the Americans who supported the stimulus bill did so largely on the promise of jobs.

   So how is it working? The stimulus bill was signed on Feb. 17. It’s been nearly five months. What is the result? America has lost an additional 2,619,000 jobs since the bill was signed. This has thrust the national unemployment rate to 9.5 percent – nearly 19 percent higher than the 8 percent unemployment rate that the stimulus bill was supposed to prevent us from exceeding.

   Clearly, the stimulus bill is not working as advertised.