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Full Time Stimulus Spending - Part Time Work

Last year, Ron Hesselink of Rudyard Electric Service took a job paid for by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. It was installing 50 lights in a fish hatchery.

Hesselink said it took two people three days to do the job which paid $11,933.

It got reported as one job "created," according to Recovery.org, the U.S. Government's reporting site for the stimulus act.

"Realistically, for six total days labor, does that create much?" Hesselink asked. "It really didn't create a job. ... If they are calling that a 'job created' for fulltime, that is real misleading."

The jobs "created" and "saved" have become a political football thrown around by the White House in its attempts to lift up its embattled stimulus plan. White House officials predicted that unemployment would be at or below 7 percent if the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act were passed. Instead, national unemployment was at 9.5 percent for June of 2010.

In an analysis of the stimulus that appeared in the  Lansing State Journal, the White House now projects that the stimulus has created or saved between 2.5 million and 3.6 million jobs, including 102,000 in Michigan.

But what is a "created" or "saved" job? And how is it calculated?

The actual calculations are confusing. Both federal and state officials pointed to an Office of Management and Budget Sept. 15 memo when asked to explain just how FTE calculations are made.

The memo states that FTE is calculated based on aggregate hours worked so temporary or part-time labor is not overstated. However, the reporting of hours worked is done by the recipient and accepted as fact by the government.

"What we are reporting is what the recipient reported to us," said Ed Pound, spokesman for Recovery.org, the federal government site that collects and reports stimulus data. "We are hoping they reported accurately."

Beth Bingham, director of the Michigan Economic Recovery Office, said the state doesn't have a way to distinguish between a "created" or "saved" job.

"The data is not collected that way," Bingham said.

Instead, that state just goes by, "what was reported," Bingham said.

Pound  said the definition of jobs "created" and "saved" was confusing. So his organization now just goes by "jobs funded" by the stimulus. Pound acknowledges the White House still uses the "created" and "saved" terms, but said that was for political reasons.

Yet, Recovery.org still posts on its website the number of jobs "created" by each project.

For example, according to Recovery.org, the Gourdie-Fraser surveying firm in Traverse City "created" five jobs when it surveyed Saugatuck property.

According to an email from Gary Wilson of Gourdie-Fraser, that job involved five people and took 20 days. One person was brought back after being laid off to do the work..

State Representative Dave Agema, R-Kentwood, said that when most people hear jobs are created, they think it is a full-time, 12-month job.

Agema said that if three-days of work by two people was being called creating a job, it was "garbage."

"It's deceitful of the government to imply that jobs that last three days are real jobs," Agema said. "It's typical of government to be overstating the jobs created. You can not trust the government with the numbers they give us. The stimulus did not and does not work as they have tried to get us to believe."

Michigan Capitol Confidential is the news source produced by the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. Michigan Capitol Confidential reports with a free-market news perspective.

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Analysis: Michael Moore Appears Ready to Take Film Subsidy for Anti-Subsidy Film

The Traverse City Record-Eagle yesterday reported that filmmaker Michael Moore expects to receive between $650,000 and $1 million in state film subsidies for producing part of "Capitalism: A Love Story" in Michigan.

Actually, the Record-Eagle reported that Moore has "a new project - revitalizing derelict, depressed downtown theaters in communities across Michigan." The fact that he would use taxpayers' money to pay for his philanthropy was barely noted. The irony that Moore might receive state funds for a film that denounced government handouts to the wealthy and politically favored went completely unremarked.

The Mackinac Center reported in January that a production person working for Moore had applied for a tax refund of up to 42 percent of the filmmaker's total spending in Michigan on the "Capitalism" documentary. Because of Michigan Film Office secrecy, it was not known if the money would be awarded. The office seemed unconcerned that Moore's membership on the Michigan Film Office Advisory Council might present a conflict of interest.

But there appears to be something conflicted taking place. While promoting his documentary on "legalized greed," Moore conducted a lengthy interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer and argued that the United States does not have a true democracy because wealthy people have access to politicians who provide them with taxpayer handouts:

"I'm saying that we do not have a complete democracy if the economy is not a democracy," Moore told Blitzer in September 2009. "You can't call it a democracy just because I get to vote every two or four years. There has to be democracy in the economy, there should be democracy in the workplace. What's wrong with democracy? Why do these companies hate America? What is it about America and our love of democracy where they just go, 'oh, no, that's not good - we think the one percent, the richest one percent should be calling all the shots, should be buying the politicians, making the decisions.' That's the kind of democracy they like - where the one percent control everything. It's just not right, it's not fair, it's not American..."

Yet today, Moore indicates he's willing to take up to $1 million from the taxpayers of the hardest-hit state economy. Where is the democracy in that? Michigan residents didn't vote to give a wealthy filmmaker a generous subsidy.

Sure, Moore says he plans to use the windfall to revitalize derelict theaters. It's easy to be generous with other people's money. If handled with the right PR effort, a gift might just take the spotlight off the inconsistency of a favored, well-heeled industry getting benefits from politicians at the expense of downtrodden taxpayers.

 

Michigan Capitol Confidential is the news source produced by the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. Michigan Capitol Confidential reports with a free-market news perspective.