Conservatively Speaking

Obama-itis

Posted by Mary Lazich on Feb. 9, 2010

Economy, Legislation

Maybe we should call it Obama-itis, an affliction caused by either a desire to inflate or an inability to honestly project job creation numbers.

The president and his administration sold America a bill of goods on jobs supposedly created by the massive stimulus expenditures. 

Obama-itis has trickled down to the state level.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports, “Construction of a planned high-speed rail line between Wisconsin's two largest cities will employ a maximum of 4,732 people at its peak in 2012, state figures show, despite earlier claims from Gov. Jim Doyle's administration that the project would create some 13,000 jobs. The difference between the figures is a reflection of how state and federal officials count jobs created with federal stimulus dollars, a process that has drawn criticism for double-counting jobs that continue over time.”

The governor’s office is also trying to sell controversial global warming legislation by promising on his web site  the creation of 15,000 jobs. An economic study by the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute (WPRI) found that adopting the governor’s proposed polices would result in more than 43,000 lost jobs statewide.

Place me squarely in the skeptic column. I am very leery of any rosy job creation figures flowing out of Washington or Madison. We need to proceed slowly and cautiously before enacting any legislation that sounds far too good to be true that may cost taxpayers their wallets and their jobs in the future.