Washington's economic rescue plan won't end the recession, economists suggested Wednesday, but it could ease the pain and help create or save 79,300 jobs in Indiana and fix 176 school buildings.
New estimates from the White House showed the $900 billion spending plan would create or save 3.67 million jobs nationwide by late 2010, including 79,300 in Indiana. The report doesn't specify what industries would benefit, but the details emerging show more than $5 billion might become available in Indiana for projects such as road-building and school renovations.
Despite being hit by factory layoffs, Indiana and Michigan will see fewer jobs saved or created on a percentage basis than Illinois, Kentucky, Ohio and the nation, according to The Indianapolis Star's analysis of the White House report.
In Indiana, the 79,300 jobs created or saved equals 29.7 percent of the 266,500 people out of work in December, The Star's analysis shows. Nationwide, jobs in the stimulus plan amount to 33.1 percent of the jobless.
The House version of the simulus bill has passed, and the Senate is still working on its version -- never mind the reconciliation bill that will have to put the two of them together. How can anybody take seriously a White House estimate based on something that isn't even there yet? What's the point of a newspaper doing an "analysis" of such fiction? At least the Star included a quote or two from some of the skeptics, including William Niskanen's remarkably restrained observation that the head of the Council of Economic advisers "fudged the analysis to come up with 3.67 million jobs."
