ABC News on the Stimulus

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Transcript, via Daily Kos!:

Charles Gibson, ABC News: The White House has been under scrutiny regarding the number of jobs created by the $727 billion economic stimulus program. Reports from The Administration and Congress have provided only rough estimates. So, we asked Chris Bury to see whether he could find evidence as to whether the program had paid off.

Chris Bury: For these police cadets in Missouri, teachers in Virginia and construction workers in Pennsylvania, the stimulus means paychecks.

Bury: What were you doing before this?

John Barrett, Construction Worker: I was laid off, collecting unemployment, trying to survive.

Bury: After eight months of scraping by, John Barrett is among the painters, carpenters and other tradesmen newly hired to fix up broken down public housing in Philadelphia.

Barrett: It means a lot. It means we can start living like we used to live.

Bury: The jobs came only after the Philadelphia Housing Authority got a nice slice of that stimulus, $127 million. Would you have these jobs without the stimulus money?

Carl Greene, Executive Director, Philadelphia Housing Authority: Without the stimulus money, 3,000 less people would have the opportunity to work.

Bury: On projects like this, the stimulus means more than just construction jobs. Tens of millions of dollars in new federal spending are rippling across the region. At first, the owner of this Pennsylvania window company had big doubts about the president's plan.

Alan Levin, CEO, Northeast Building Products: I was definitely skeptical, wondering if we're mortgaging our future.

Bury: Now, his firm is building the windows for that public housing and hiring another 100 workers. and now?

Levin: I'm a believer. I think everyone in this factory is a believer.

Bury: So is the St. Louis Police Force. After budget cuts canceled this entire cadet class, stimulus money revived it -- $8.7 million to pay 50 salaries for three years.

Dan Isom, St. Louis Metro Police Chief: This is the time to invest in police officers, not disinvest in them.

Bury: Unlike those police officers, 275 teachers in Chesterfield, Virginia, are getting only one year's salary after $20 million in stimulus spending here.

Smith, Chesterfield County Schools, Va.: We're going to save jobs, but we know it's a one-time fix.

Bury: But any jobs are better than none, say the stimulus believers and they see the benefits spreading beyond mere paychecks, to safer streets, stronger schools and better housing.

[Ban Hammer 13,345]

so if you've received money, you should believe in it. how much did you get, aj? i didn't get a penny!

[alienlovechild 75]

The only job growth is in government jobs, education and healthcare. Healthcare is still largely private but the bulk of stimulus spending hasn't leveraged more spending by the market to hire new workers.

[onwa 6]

The engineering firm I work for has several ARRA jobs, but I'm still laid off--or on call.

[Pooky 3,786]

But a good number of those jobs "created" are a result of someone losing their job.

The net effect? Zero. Nil. Nada. Null. Zilch. I know this from personal experience. The reason? Stimulus money being doled out, or not, to criteria that nobody on the receiving end has any clue about, stifling some expenditures, while facilitating others. It's not a stimulus, it's a lottery.

[slim 1,525]

One of our local radio guys, The Great American - Bill Cunningham - said the other day the government is creating all these jobs in government, administrations, think tanks, study groups, etc. All really great jobs except for the fact that they produce absolutely ZERO products and incentives to stimulate growth. When you produce "nothing" you don't need to expand to produce more "nothing" do you?

However, they still expand at a pretty rapid rate. The major difference between the government bureaucracy expansions and private enterprise's expansions is private enterprises make more money when they expand. Government positions and the like only COST money.

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

The only job growth is in government jobs, education and healthcare. Healthcare is still largely private but the bulk of stimulus spending hasn't leveraged more spending by the market to hire new workers.

So, those construction workers in Philly are government employees? And the window factory hired 100 government workers? Is that what you're saying?