Why Obama's Stimulus Program Failed

I mentioned last month that even by the White House's own probably optimistic definition of the number of jobs created by the stimulus bill, these jobs ended up costing the government (that is to say, the taxpayers now and for generations to come) at least $218,000 per job.  Want to know why they were so expensive?  My guess is that a lot of these projects were like this one described in this August 16, 2011 KOMO report:

Last year, Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn announced the city had won a coveted $20 million federal grant to invest in weatherization. The unglamorous work of insulating crawl spaces and attics had emerged as a silver bullet in a bleak economy – able to create jobs and shrink carbon footprint – and the announcement came with great fanfare.

McGinn had joined Vice President Joe Biden in the White House to make it. It came on the eve of Earth Day. It had heady goals: creating 2,000 living-wage jobs in Seattle and retrofitting 2,000 homes in poorer neighborhoods.

But more than a year later, Seattle's numbers are lackluster. As of last week, only three homes had been retrofitted and just 14 new jobs have emerged from the program. Many of the jobs are administrative, and not the entry-level pathways once dreamed of for low-income workers. Some people wonder if the original goals are now achievable.

Of course, it has not been all bad.  The major beneficiaries of the loan program appear to be hospitals and the Washington Athletic Club.   Make sure you read the membership application page for the WAC: it's clear that these are the sort of desperately poor people that needed government assistance!

Crony capitalism describes what the Obama Administration (and the Democratic Party) stand for.