Newspaper: Fake stimulus exposed

The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review has an excellent editorial today about the much-hyped Obama/Pelosi/Reid "stimulus" package that cost taxpayers $787 billion but did not produce jobs. An independent assessment of the "stimulus" plan by The Associated Press found that the bill was a total bust.

Fake stimulus: Political accounting

The notion that Democrats' stimulus funding for roads and bridges has reduced unemployment doesn't withstand scrutiny. So using jobs to justify more such federal spending is deceptive and misguided.

An analysis by The Associated Press -- and reviewed by five independent academic economists -- found road and bridge projects worth $21 billion have not affected local jobless rates or significantly helped construction firms. Tellingly, there's no difference in unemployment trends between counties given the most stimulus money for roads and bridges and counties that received none.

Thus, White House claims about the stimulus creating and saving jobs are even more dubious. Yet the Democrat-controlled House already has approved the $75 billion Jobs for Main Street Act, a new stimulus bill that includes another $28 billion for roads and bridges and that will be taken up soon by the Democrat-controlled Senate. Care to speculate on its fate?

The need to upgrade infrastructure and transportation's key role in prosperity are real. But spendthrift Democrats' willingness to hide their true, politically motivated agenda behind demonstrably false "jobs" rhetoric is appalling. It's cynicism that taxpayers -- and the jobless -- can't afford.