A number of years have passed since the stimulus was enacted by Obama. Yet there are a number of Republican critics that continue to bring up this topic every now and then.
Rand Paul, being one of them, took a shot at the President after his State of the Union speech, in saying, “Mr. President, where are the jobs? You spent nearly a trillion dollars on make-work government jobs and still joblessness confronts the next generation.”
This statement has been found to be rather dubious by experts, and here’s why: not all $816 billion went to make work jobs, actually.
Actually, $290.7 billion went as tax benefits to both businesses and individuals while another $264.4 billion was used for entitlements such as food stamps, Medicaid, Medicare as well as unemployment benefits.
The remaining $261.2 billion was given out in the form of contracts, loans and grants in a number of areas such as education, transportation, energy, science, health and infrastructure as well.
This third amount did fund a few government jobs such as for teachers while the largest amount was used for road-building companies and hazardous waste cleanup contractors.
And speaking of funding teachers who were in danger of being laid off while being employed for a while, one can hardly classify that as a ‘make work’ job.
So, it’s clear that Paul’s claim of Obama spending a trillion dollars on make work government jobs is completely false.