Michelle Malkin » Now, they tell us: AP admits that porkulus numbers are B.S.

Now, they tell us: AP admits that porkulus numbers are B.S.

By Michelle Malkin • March 26, 2009 09:40 AM

Hey, Associated Press: Way to look after the public interest! A month after the Generational Theft Act was rushed through Congress and signed into law, the news service tells us that the jobs projections were basically pulled out of thin air.

The title of the AP’s penetrating, belated analysis: “Bold claims of stimulus jobs can’t be measured.”

Now, they tell us:

If space exploration were conducted like the job forecasts under the government’s new stimulus law, man surely would have missed the moon. But this isn’t rocket science.
No promise from President Barack Obama is more important to the wounded economy than his vow to save or create some 3.5 million jobs in two years. In support of that bottom line, the government even tells states how many jobs they can expect to see from the spending and tax cuts.
But precise trajectories are impossible to plot and even approximations can be wildly off, as the authors of these forecasts acknowledge, usually more readily than the policymakers who use them to promote the plan.

Flip through the stacks of economic analyses underpinning the stimulus plan and you find a lot of throat-clearing qualifications and angst:

_”Very uncertain.”

_”Difficult to distinguish among alternative estimates.”

_”We confess to considerable uncertainty.”

_”Subject to substantial margins of error.”

In other words, who really knows?

Economic modeling may prove to be a haywire navigational device in this crisis.
“Large fiscal stimulus is rarely attempted,” Douglas Elmendorf, director of the nonpartisan

Congressional Budget Office, told lawmakers. “For those reasons, some economists remain skeptical that there will be any significant effects, while others expect very large ones.” Zero to nirvana? Even for economists, who routinely differ among themselves, that’s a range beyond the norm.

The disconnect between theory and real life became evident when Obama pitched his plan at a Caterpillar factory before its passage and held out hope the federal stimulus money would let the heavy equipment maker rehire some of the thousands being let go. Although that might be the eventual result when money courses through the pipeline, Caterpillar last week announced 2,400 more layoffs.

Hey, we can’t wait until they wake up and realize how much pork is in the bill, how much will go to bloated unions overseeing pie-in-the-sky construction projects, how little will be spent until after the recession is over, and how the true costs will top $3.2 trillion.

Breaking news!

~ For the latest breaking news, be sure to join Michelle's e-mail list ~

Posted in: fiscal stimulus

Printer Friendly

comments (41)

See what others have said

Note from Michelle: This section is for comments from michellemalkin.com's community of registered readers. Please don't assume that I agree with or endorse any particular comment just because I let it stand. A reminder: Anyone who fails to comply with my terms of use may lose his or her posting privilege.

Comments

#1

On March 26th, 2009 at 9:45 am, prendad said:

Everything in this Obama administration is pulled out of thin air.
#2

On March 26th, 2009 at 9:45 am, GraniteMan said:

Typical AP–a dollar short and a day late.
The only defender of the constitution are the people. How can we defend if we have Pravda for information?
#3

On March 26th, 2009 at 9:47 am, no2pcbs1 said:

porkulus unlimited, president overhyped, not a leader but an activist, congress, utterly worthless.
#4

On March 26th, 2009 at 9:48 am, Dexter Alarius said:

What do you expect from the Associated (with terrorists) Press. They have an agenda… and it isn’t reporting the news impartially.
#5

On March 26th, 2009 at 9:49 am, NJ-Aviator said:

Another reason everyone in the White House and every dem and RINO needs to be jailed.
#6

On March 26th, 2009 at 9:51 am, ajmontana said:

Reading a Bill before passing would help, or not. willy nilly is 100%accurate describing the Pelosi porkenstien packages. These people need to be voted out ASAP
#7

On March 26th, 2009 at 9:51 am, Traditionalist said:

Remember, he’s going to SAVE or create 3.5 million jobs.

Therefore, if we lose 2 million jobs over his time in office, he could simply say “Well yes, but I saved 5.5 million for a net gain of 3.5 million”.

I suppose I could say that I saved the world from a collision with a meteor….even though I have no proof of anything I “created” to do that.

The burden of proof? That’s on YOU to prove me wrong.

Twisted logic…..and some folks are going to be dumb enough to buy it…..including the AP when the next election rolls around and their Messiah appears to be in danger of losing his job.
#8

On March 26th, 2009 at 9:56 am, ajmontana said:

How do you dispose of an Odopey Glow-B-Gone light bulb?
And where are they going to dump all that Kool-Aid?
#9

On March 26th, 2009 at 9:57 am, tre said:

Well, they already got what they wanted; a bill to put even my GRANDCHILDREN in debt ram-rodded through. So NOW they can start telling the truth about it so they won’t look quite so foolish when people start learning what we got ourselves into.
#10

On March 26th, 2009 at 9:58 am, cabrerski said:

To paraphrase one of my favorite cartoons:

“Hey Rocky…watch me pull an answer out of my a**…nothing in my head…Presto!!!”
#11

On March 26th, 2009 at 9:59 am, Just A Grunt said:

Some of us didn’t need to have the AP to tell us this. BS has a distinctive smell.
#12

On March 26th, 2009 at 9:59 am, sonofdy said:

F$%% IT, just print the money. We are going down anyway so we might as well go in style.
#13

On March 26th, 2009 at 10:04 am, MNUSMCDavid said:

Well as much as I so want to hammer the AP, the fault really lies within us. We, in our own twisted ways, put these nimrods in power or kept them there. It’s up to us, ultimately, to fix it. But, that said, Thanks AP… fer nuthin!
#14

On March 26th, 2009 at 10:04 am, granite said:

On March 26th, 2009 at 9:45 am, prendad said:

Everything in this Obama administration is pulled out of thin air.

It seems to me that everything is pulled not out of the air; but, rather, out of another place, which cannot be mentioned here, because this is a family blog….
#15

On March 26th, 2009 at 10:06 am, DamnCat said:

The disconnect between theory and real life became evident when Obama pitched his plan at a Caterpillar factory…

The disconnect is between Obama’s bulls**t and the truth. Also between honest reporting and AP excuse making for Obama.

“In other words, who really knows?”

Why not come out and say it honestly? Obama made up a big fairytale and you never bothered to call him on it until it was too late.
#16

On March 26th, 2009 at 10:06 am, jbh45 said:

Sen Calderon was at my place of business awhile ago. He read a statement. When questions got around to AIG bailouts, stimulus, bonuses. He exused himself and left the building. Coward!

It reminded me of what happens when you shine a light on a cockroach.
#17

On March 26th, 2009 at 10:13 am, jangar said:

AP is about as quick as Congress.
#18

On March 26th, 2009 at 10:13 am, PhredE said:

Harry Reid ensured that E-Verify was removed from the text of the bill during reconciliation from House-Senate versions.

Now, there is no actual guarantee that US taxpayer funds will even necessarily go to actually ‘creating jobs’ for Americans.

How screwed up is that!?!?!
#19

On March 26th, 2009 at 10:14 am, jangar said:

It reminded me of what happens when you shine a light on a cockroach.

Is there a difference? Walks like a duck…
#20

On March 26th, 2009 at 10:25 am, corona said:

The good news is that the recession will be over some day.

The question is if it will end in recovery or depression.
#21

On March 26th, 2009 at 10:37 am, JDinTX said:

It isn’t so much “who really knows” as “who really cares” in the Obama administration. The idiots who voted for him will believe any number coming from the teleprompter. And just how many of these jobs are going to illegals? We could create millions of jobs just by deporting them. Housing problem solved!
#22

On March 26th, 2009 at 10:49 am, tpitman said:

What I wanna know is when should we start seeing products on the shelves that are borne of the stimulus money? In other words, when are we gonna see stuff with Li’l BO’s stickers on it? Reminds me of an old Lenny Bruce bit about a used car salesman: “Every car on the Fat Boy lot has an OK sticker on the windshield. When you see an OK sticker on a Fat Boy car, you know one damn thing: there’s an OK sticker on that car!”
#23

On March 26th, 2009 at 11:05 am, cheapseat said:

but ap knows they have three years for you to forget the crap they fed you 6 months ago, as they gin up to feed you the next load of crap about the next smartest man in the universe who will give everyone 2 chickens in every pot. huey long/times picayune, meet barack hussein obama/ap/nbc.
#24

On March 26th, 2009 at 11:06 am, happyscrapper said:

There is no investigative reporting any more…except on FOX. No one digs for the truth. They just report surface junk, slobber a bit over the almighty POTUS, then on to celebrity gossip. If there is a nugget of truth buried a bit under the surface, it stays buried. Journalism is dead and rotting.
#25

On March 26th, 2009 at 11:25 am, Rogue Cheddar said:

They’re not only “Associated”, they’re also “Annointed”, “Coordinated”, “Coopted”, and “Corrupted”. Their motto “We get it right 1st time , all the time, well, most of the time, well, at least the obituaries!”
#26

On March 26th, 2009 at 11:34 am, DesertLover said:

Is it too late to add and earmark to the Porkulus Bill?

I want to redirect that “swine odor” money for Iowa to DC … all this pork spending is creating a lot of swine odor there …
#27

On March 26th, 2009 at 11:54 am, Regulus said:

This “Oh, by the way, we didn’t get around to telling you before now but the numbers are bogus” story is just an exercise in CYA on the AP’s part. Later, when the fantastic jobs claims don’t pan out, the AP can then say that they covered the story and got it right.

It’s little different from enviro-nitwits first predicting “The Coming Ice Age,” then shifting gears to “Global Warming” before finally settling on “Climate Change.”

The Voluntary State Media that we have today is no different from Pravda, Isvestia and TASS in that the careful reader or listener knows how to glean the really important news and/or the truth from what they don’t report. The AP’s motto for the Hope-a-Dope era should be,

“All the news you need to know — for now.”

The good news, one supposes, is that even the AP is beginning to realize that the SS Hopenchange is going to sink, and although they’re still officially on board with the Dear Leader they’re starting to furtively eye the lifeboats.
#28

On March 26th, 2009 at 11:55 am, happyscrapper said:

On March 26th, 2009 at 11:34 am,

DesertLover said:
Is it too late to add and earmark to the Porkulus Bill?

I want to redirect that “swine odor” money for Iowa to DC … all this pork spending is creating a lot of swine odor there …

Personally, I would LOVE to be able to ship a truckload of enormous sows directly to the steps of Congress and turn them loose! Wouldn’t that be a hoot? Or a snort, as the case may be.
#29

On March 26th, 2009 at 11:57 am, pueblo1032 said:

Another case of MSM with their heads so far up their HINEYS they can’t even hear straight… HELL, it wasn’t more then two, at most three weeks into O-BOZO’S administration he changed from “CREATING JOBS”, to “CREATE OR SAVE JOBS”…
#30

On March 26th, 2009 at 12:22 pm, iamsaved said:

I’d like to see just one so-called journalist from the AP ask Obama a direct question about his fuzzy math, or actually, his lies, without later apologizing profusely for even asking the question.

I doubt it, but maybe the AP is seeing all the liberal, lying, yellow news sites going belly up and figure maybe they should start reporting the news and investigating the facts rather than being a propaganda arm of the Democratic Party.

When I start to read an article, I first check is to see if it came from the AP. If it has, my skeptisism meter goes up drastically. That is if I decide to even read the article.

On TV, if I see Charlie Gibson, Brian Williams, or Katie Couric’s face on the news, I switch the channel immediately. Thank heaven we have Foxnews to jump to.
#31

On March 26th, 2009 at 12:22 pm, denver republican said:

You can’t spell CRAP without AP.
#32

On March 26th, 2009 at 12:25 pm, NormalAmericanInLA said:

When the chatter from the Teleprompter in Chief changed from “create jobs” to “save jobs,” I knew the spendulous bill was a crock of $hit.
#33

On March 26th, 2009 at 1:00 pm, DesertLover said:

To Paraphrase Hillary …

Trusting an AP report requires a total suspension of disbelief …
#34

On March 26th, 2009 at 1:23 pm, WarTip said:

Warning! Flagrant Personal Attack Included In This Post: Read at your own discretion!

On March 26th, 2009 at 11:55 am, happyscrapper said:
On March 26th, 2009 at 11:34 am, DesertLover said: Personally, I would LOVE to be able to ship a truckload of enormous sows directly to the steps of Congress and turn them loose! Wouldn’t that be a hoot? Or a snort, as the case may be.

Didn’t code stink and (mental) boobs not bombs already show up there a time or two?
#35

On March 26th, 2009 at 2:25 pm, happyscrapper said:

On March 26th, 2009 at 11:55 am, happyscrapper said:
Personally, I would LOVE to be able to ship a truckload of enormous sows directly to the steps of Congress and turn them loose! Wouldn’t that be a hoot? Or a snort, as the case may be.

On March 26th, 2009 at 1:23 pm, WarTip said:
Didn’t code stink and (mental) boobs not bombs already show up there a time or two?

Maybe that is what Harry Reid was referring to when he complained about the stink when commoners (otherwise known as the “chattering class”)came to visit!
#36

On March 26th, 2009 at 2:49 pm, mytake said:

Michelle, Please go after Soros, the slimeball that put Obama in office and made money by betting against his Presidency.
#37

On March 26th, 2009 at 3:05 pm, cnredd said:

Tomorrow’s AP headlines…

“Michael Jackson Wins Multiple Grammys for Thriller“…
#38

On March 26th, 2009 at 5:06 pm, katablog said:

Personally, I would LOVE to be able to ship a truckload of enormous sows directly to the steps of Congress and turn them loose! Wouldn’t that be a hoot? Or a snort, as the case may be.

Count me in if there’s a real fund raiser to make this happen!

We certainly need to go beyond the Tea Party movement. I understand it’s just getting started, but as we wind up, they spend money faster.
#39

On March 26th, 2009 at 6:27 pm, happyscrapper said:

Sorry for going way off topic! But I just got this e-mail and I want to share it. If you feel strongly about this issue, please send a red envelope on March 31st. I think it is worth doing, although I don’t have any illusions about Obama’s heart actually changing. He is way too committed to the liberal agenda to actually consider that abortion might be wrong!

IMPORTANT .. RED ENVELOPE DAY
SHARE THIS WITH EVERYONE YOU KNOW
When: March 31, 2009

Get a red envelope. You can buy them at Kinkos, or at most party supply stores.
On the front, address it to:
President Barack Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW
Washington , D.C. 20500
On the back, write the following message:

This envelope represents one child who died because of an abortion. It is empty because the life that was taken is now unable to be a part of our world.
We will mail the envelopes out March 31st, 2009.

Then forward this event to every one of your friends who you think would
send one too.

I wish we could send 50 million red envelopes, one for every child who
died [in the U.S.] before having a chance to live.

It may seem that those who believe abortion is wrong are in a minority.

It may seem like we have no voice and it’s shameful to even bring it up.

Let us show our President and the world that the voices of those of us who
do not believe abortion is acceptable are not silent, and must be heard.

Together we can change the heart of The President and save the lives of
millions of children.

http://www.lifenews.com/nat4359.html

AGAIN, MY APOLOGIES FOR GOING OFF-TOPIC! I JUST FELT THIS WAS A GOOD WAY TO REACH A LOT OF PEOPLE WHO BELIEVE THE WAY I DO!
#40

On March 26th, 2009 at 6:57 pm, RabbidSquirrel said:

On March 26th, 2009 at 9:59 am, Just A Grunt said:

Some of us didn’t need to have the AP to tell us this. BS has a distinctive smell.

To paraphrase Clint Eastwood:

“This is BS, the preferred weapon of your enemy; and it makes a distinctive smell when fired at you, so remember it. “
#41

On March 27th, 2009 at 12:32 am, Doctor Hook said:

Everything in this Obama administration is pulled out of thin air.
-prendad

I think they pulled it out of somewhere other than thin air.