Under the Radar

 

ECONOMY -- CONSERVATIVES PEDDLE MYTH THAT STIMULUS SPENDS $275,000 FOR EVERY JOB CREATED: Over the past few weeks, conservatives  have been staking out their opposition the economic recovery package by peddling a variety of myths. One favorite is that taxpayers will be forced to pay $275,000 for every job created by the plan. "All told, the plan would spend a whopping $275,000 in taxpayer dollars for every new job it aims to create, saddling each and every household with $6,700 in additional debt," House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) said. "It is more than likely the private sector could have created more than one job for $275,000," according to Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-CA). Nobel laureate Paul Krugman addressed this "bogus talking point" yesterday in his New York Times column, saying that it "involves taking the cost of a plan that will extend over several years, creating millions of jobs each year, and dividing it by the jobs created in just one of those years," Krugman wrote. Time's Joe Klein called the number "phony-baloney propaganda," while economist Dean Baker noted that "the media have been typically derelict in simply reporting this number without making any assessment to evaluate it." And as Center for American Progress Action Fund senior fellow and budget expert Scott Lilly pointed out, the actual cost per job is closer to $50,000, without taking into account the "substantial number of additional jobs [created] beyond 2012."

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