Anyone who remembers, say, his campaign pronouncement that a Kansas tornado had left “ten thousand dead” and “an entire town destroyed” (the 2007 storm actually killed twelve people) knows that President Barack Obama (D-IL) hasn’t been one to worry about playing fast and loose with a few facts or numbers.

However, his dogged refusal to deviate from his standard talking point of “150,000 jobs created or saved” by the $787,000,000,000.00 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (also known as the “stimulus package,” or, my personal favorite, “Porkulus”) is beginning to lend itself to more than a little head-scratching by observers.

A Claim Unchanged by Time

Mr. Obama and his administration have been making the claim for several weeks now. On May 27, “White House economic advisers” announced the “stimulus” had “created or saved 150,000 jobs” since its inception 100 days before — an average increase (or savings) of about 1,500 jobs a day. Twelve days later, on June 8, Vice President Joe Biden (D-DE) made the same proclamation on a conference call with reporters: the stimulus had “saved or created 150,000 [jobs]” to date.

Theoretically, there should have been about 18,000 more jobs than that, given the twelve day interval between the May 27 announcement and the June 8 call, but never mind that. Just for good measure, despite the fact economists and simple observers who had the virtue of being awake alike were throwing up their hands in disbelief that a presidential administration would actually make such a claim about something as obviously incalculable as a “saved” job, Biden added the assertion that there had been “no ‘reasonable’ challenges to the estimates.”

Last Wednesday, July 8 — a full 30 days after the Biden conference call, and 42 after the initial 100 day claim of “150,000 jobs created or saved,” Mr. Obama’s deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget announced the “stimulus” had — you guessed it! — “created or saved 150,000 jobs since its inception in February.”

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For the last 35 years, educators and analysts at The Heritage Foundation have been intimately involved in the nation’s great public policy debates. In all that time, we have never encountered legislation with such far-reaching and revolutionary policy implications as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act currently before Congress. And never have we seen a bill more cloaked in secrecy or more withdrawn from open public exposure and honest debate.

In addition to being the single most expensive bill ever proposed, this measure calls for a massive expansion of the federal government’s reach into the day-to-day life of virtually every citizen, business and civic organization in the nation. That, in itself, should be the subject of an extensive public conversation and thoughtful debate. Instead, we have seen Congressional leaders schedule snap votes on a 1,434-page bill that no one — repeat, no one — has had a chance to read in its entirety, much less digest and deliberate.

This bill has been advertised as an economic stimulus bill — despite the fact that the Congressional Budget Office estimates it will actually weaken our nation’s long-term economic growth. While the stimulative utility of the bill is, at best, questionable, it would unquestionably rewrite the social contract between the American people and their government. For example:

• The bill reverses the bipartisan and highly successful welfare reforms of 1996 and drastically expands the welfare state. For instance, it will start rewarding states for adding people to their welfare rolls, rather than for helping them find gainful employment. And contrary to long-established practice, it will entitle able-bodied adults without children to receive cash assistance.
• It does extreme violence to the concept of federalism—bailing out states that have spent irresponsibly at the expense of taxpayers in states that have been fiscally prudent.
• It greatly shifts the responsibility and power over health care delivery and decision making from individuals to government. Among other things, it would create a new federal health board to decide which medical services are “effective” in America, paving the way for government effectively to overrule the clinical decisions of private physicians.
• It deliberately censors religious speech and worship on school campuses by prohibiting use of any “stimulus” funds for facilities that are used for sectarian instruction, religious worship, or a school of divinity.

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