It has been widely reported, and widely touted by the administration, that the GAO recently determined that the $787B “stimulus” lead to a 1.2-3.5% GDP increase. On a ca. $16T economy, that is ca. $192B - $560B in GDP increase. Since that increase cost $787B, the multiplier for GDP stimulus from this round of government spending is something like 0.24-0.71. That’s right in line with what I said it was, and nowhere near the fantasy disproved number of 1.6 thrown around by the architects of the “stimulus.”

While I’m on ‘inadvertent admissions via numbers’ here’s another one: It has also been widely reported (that phrase means I’m too lazy to look up the link) that the administration has scored 600K-1.5M new jobs saved or created by the “stimulus.” That works out to $1.3M-$524K per job. (Damn, those must be pretty good jobs!) That’s a number the administration seems to be proud enough of as a “stimulus” even though it’s totally cooked and actually much worse than that. But assuming that number is ok, contrast it with the fact that sending a soldier to Afghanistan costs about $500K- $1M/year. That is certainly employment, we get something for the money, and it’s the same price or less per job. You can’t claim one is fiscally irresponsible without making the same claim for the other, but that is exactly what the administration has tried to do (‘oh the high cost of the war’ vs. ‘the “stimulus” has been great!’).