Hare Today, Gone Tomorrow

That’s the real name of an Act for which Phil voted.  Does that sum up how stupid our representatives are, or what?  Disaster relief and …. Summer Jobs!  Everyone wins!!  And the guy is so out of touch, he trumpets this ridiculous waste of taxpayer money (excuse me, “investment”) in a press release. 

From Hare’s press release:

Congressman Phil Hare (D-IL) today voted for two pieces of legislation seeking to spur hiring in the near term. 

What’s the “D” stand for, “Dummy”?  Just asking.   And why do we need to “spur hiring in the near term,” I thought the $787 billion Stimulus was going to “spur hiring in the near term,” and prevent all of this unemployment — what happened there?

More:

The Disaster Relief and Summer Jobs Act includes $600 million to create about 300,000 summer jobs for those ages 16 to 24 and extend a Recovery Act lending program for small businesses.

Let’s say half of the $600 million will go to summer jobs.  That would mean each “summer job” equates to an average of $1,000.  That’s it — a thousand bucks.  How (and more importantly) who is that going to help?  Sounds like more government crapola to me.

“The Disaster Relief and Summer Jobs Act responds to the devastating unemployment rate among young workers,” Hare added. “The ‘disconnection rate’—Americans aged 20 to 24 who were neither in school nor working—jumped to 28 percent last year from 17 percent in 2007. This emergency bill will get them working again and help our economy as a whole.”

First of all, what happened between 2007 and now?  Oh, that’s right – first the Dems, and then Obama took over.  Again, why has the problem gotten worse? 

Second, are you really telling us that “summer jobs” for 20-24 year olds, for crying out loud, earning $1,000 bucks over the whole summer is really going to “help our economy as a whole”?  Is it possible to be so mind-numbingly stupid? 

Third, I wonder what the “disconnection rate” in Congress is?  You know, the rate at which congressmen are so completely and totally disconnected from their home districts, that they vote for crap like The Disaster Relief and Summer Jobs Act, and then brag about it in a press release:  “Hey guys — I just spent another $600 million we don’t have, for walking around money for 20-24 year olds who aren’t doing anything better this summer!  Isn’t that great?”   In the 17th District at least, the disconnection rate appears to be 100%.  Time to “disconnect” Hare from his employment on our dime.

A few other thoughts:  When do we get “disaster relief”?  Maybe we can apply for a disaster relief grant, to get some relief from the disaster that is Phil Hare, and his idiot buddies in Congress…

The press release also helpfully notes that “Hare has been very active on the job creation front….”  Really?  Show me one job His Phatness has created himself, just one.  Shoot, the only job this guy is ever gonna create is when we throw his butt out of office in November.

The Stimulus Bill was (and is) the biggest scam ever.  Even under the phuzzy, Phil-phriendly math of the Obama administration, the stimulus is a giant rat hole.  And that is putting it mildly.

Example:  I just went to Recovery.gov, the Obama Administration’s not-so-aptly-named website (where’s the Recovery, all I can see is the Gov…).  Anyway, based on the administration’s own numbers, this thing is so far off the rails, it’s time to pull the plug. 

On the front page, there are several graphics.  One shows the number of “Recovery funded jobs reported by recipients.”  The number of such jobs  is currently listed as 594,644.  Another graphic shows the funds paid out so far of the $787 billion; that number is $287.7 billion (or 36.6% of the total).  So do the math:

594,644 jobs divided by $287,700,000,000.00 =  $483,818.89 per job.*

That’s right folks — almost half a million dollars, per job.  And that’s using the presumably optimistic Obama numbers, and giving credence to the absolutely idiotic phony-baloney metric of jobs being “saved or created.”  How many jobs do you think the private sector (from whom this money was confiscated in the first place) could have created with that kind of jack?  What a boondoggle.

Further, considering the fact that over 36% of the money has been spent, and less than 600,000 jobs have been “saved or created” we can expect on this performance to have a grand total of approximately 1.7 million jobs “created or saved.”  Back in those heady early days of Obama’s reign, people such as Phil Hare were promising much more. 

In fact, the very day Phil Hare voted for the stimulus, he issued a press release in which he stated that:

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act is a package of spending and tax relief that is expected to create 3 to 4 million jobs.

So, here we are, less than a year later, and it is obvious that these numbers are phantasy.  And notice that back then, there was no phony crap like “save or create” used to sell the deal; it was going to “create” 3 to 4 million jobs, not save.

Two weeks later, Hare was still touting the Stimulus; in another press release issued when President Obama came to visit Peoria on February 12, 2009, Hare stated:

“The real question about the economic recovery package is, ‘Will it play in Peoria?’ I am confident it will. The plan before Congress will create nearly 150,000 jobs in Illinois while making critical investments in infrastructure, education, health care, and clean energy….  It is absolutely critical that we pass this package and start putting the people of Central Illinois and the entire nation back to work.”

Has the stimulus done what Mr. Hare promised?  Again, no.

From Recovery.gov:

Illinois has received $2,892,320,000.00 in funds thus far, and has reported 11,271 jobs.  That is almost $260,000.00 per job.  And doing the math, that means we are looking at a grand total of about 30,000 jobs in Illinois, approximately 20% of what Mr. Hare promised.

And this is on their numbers, using the made-up “saved or created” crap.  For some hard numbers, take a look at this chart.  It compares the Obama/Hare promises with reality, and the comparison is not kind.  For Illinois since the stimulus passed, the state has lost 188,600 jobs.  Don’t worry though — Washington, DC has gained 4,800.

So, my question is this – Will this crap continue to play in Peoria?  Are we gonna let Hare and the rest of these money-drunk morons literally bankrupt this country with phony promises of government-saved jobs?

Another question – where do we get a rephund, Phil? 

Who’s ready for a Bald Congress?

*And yes, I get the fact that the jobs number only runs to December 2009, while the funds number is current to February 26, 2010.  But even assuming that 1/6 of the money was spent in the last two months and the jobs have not yet been “saved or created,” that still amounts to over $400 grand per job.   Un-phreaking-believable.