When it comes to job creation, Andrew Fieldhouse and Ethan Pollack at the Economic Policy Institute
are much happier with President Obama's 2013 budget than the one he presented for 2012. That, they say, is because the new budget has a $350 billion job package and last year's was focused on deficit reduction. That choice, as noted by many critics, both amateur and professional, was a big mistake.
The two men say the results of the proposed 2013 spending compared with not spending it would be 1.5 million jobs in fiscal year 2012 and 1.3 million jobs in fiscal year 2013. It would also reduce the unemployment by 0.5 percent over what it would be without the package for 2012, and 0.4 percent over what it would otherwise be by September 2013, Fieldhouse and Pollack say.
Most of that $350 billion would be spent in the first 18 months:
• $95 billion in the payroll tax cuts (employee-side)
• $80 billion in other business tax cuts (including a $25 billion hiring credit)
• $45 billion in emergency unemployment benefit extension
• $25 billion in transportation infrastructure investments ($50 billion over ten years)
• $20 billion in school facility repair and modernization
• $30 billion in retaining or rehiring teachers and first responders
• $25 billion miscellaneous neighborhood stabilization, job training, energy efficiency, VA conservation jobs, infrastructure bank, and manufacturing incentives
The methodology for their analysis can be found
here.
The only problem with this scenario is that Republicans have called Obama's budget "dead on arrival." They're already suffering from a considerable uptick in good economic news and are determined not to allow any more to happen in an election year.