Stimulus Smoke and Mirrors

From a regular reader on Monday:

Yesterday's Sun-Times stated that Obama will seek $778b for 3 to 4 million stimulus jobs. Has anyone done the math? That works out to be $194,000 per "job." We would be better off giving the 3 to 4 million job seekers $50,000. to tide them over, & give the rest of us a tax cut so we can investment and create real jobs. What a waste. For us and our children.

Newsbusters: "Why Won't Media Ask Tough Questions About Stimulus?"

More: Brian Wesbury and Robert Stein, "The Most Intense Period Of The Recession Is Behind Us". NRO, Roll up the TARP.

UPDATE: Tribune editorial:

John Cochrane, a professor at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, says that among academics over the last 30 years, the idea of fiscal stimulus has been discredited and in graduate courses, it is "taught only for its fallacies."

New York University economist Thomas Sargent agrees: "The calculations that I have seen supporting the stimulus package are back-of-the-envelope ones that ignore what we have learned in the last 60 years of macroeconomic research."

Nobel Laureate Gary Becker says any benefits will be modest at best.

I would add, once again, as Professor Martin Feldstein has noted, spending money on defense would be a wise and effective use of our taxpayer dollars. Defense is one of the primary missions of the federal government, and it's something we can't do for ourselves in the private sector. Not to mention we need to rebuild our military after they have served us so well.