COMMENTARY: ARRA or Stimulus? Oregon as an Example

Spending without taxing forces printing money. Printing money causes inflation.

If you are willing to vote for this package, then if it does not work you should be able to take a cut in salary. For a U.S. Representative or Senator, it should be their whole salary if their State or District fails to have the jobs materialize in their area.

The low end claimed for the Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) is 3 million jobs. That is about one job for every 101 people in a nation of 305 million people.

In the House of Representatives there are 435 US Representatives who vote and 6 who do not vote that represent the Territories that are not States. That is about 691,609 people each for 441 who represent the people of the States and territories.

So, that means about 6917 for each District. In Oregon, there are five Congressional Districts. That would mean at least 35,580 jobs for Oregon, if you figure it that way.

If you look at the total population again, 305 million, Oregon is 3.8 million of that or one in every 81 U.S. citizens. If you divide that 3 million jobs by 81, that means Oregon should get at least 37,037 jobs from ARRA. One of the Oregon U.S. Representatives is claiming we will get 44,000 jobs from this spending, so this seems fair.

It sounds helpful, too, when we have about 180,000 unemployed in Oregon. . That 180,000 is twice the unemployment of a good economy, so we need to reduce to 90,000 unemployed.

However, let's just hold the Representative to the 37,037 jobs. That would mean this ARRA should bring the unemployment down to 143,000. So, if we are at that low end by the end of the year, the Representatives who voted for ARRA should be able to keep their salary and job. Otherwise....

However, remember that one in 81 figure. The ARRA costs $787 billion. That means ARRA is costing Oregon $9,716,049,382 to get 37037 jobs or $262,232 per job.

Can't we get a better deal than that? If we paid workers to just build windmills at $62,232 per worker, including wages and benefits, that would be a very good deal for the workers.They would still have wages of $42,000 after paying for benefits.

Yet, it would leave $200,000 left over for those roads and bridges we need. But even if we just built windmills, it would be a better use of our money. You can install at least three sizeable wind generators for $200,000. Imagine 37,000 windmiills and 37,000 people employed for a year.

Would you rather have? The "Stimulus Plan" of Congress? Or mine?

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