I was reading Corporate Giants Land Obama Small Business Funds Under ARRA, because I always find it interesting how large corporations manage to find ways to get government funding set aside for small business. Instead of legal loophole shenanigans, I found this alarmist gem:

In December of 2008, President Barack Obama’s Presidential transition team estimated that for every billion dollars spent on federal infrastructure projects, 40,000 jobs would be created nationwide. (http://tiny.cc/POj7a ) Yet on Thursday, the Obama Administration released its first report on the distribution of dollars under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) claiming that it has distributed $16 billion in stimulus funds and created 30, 383 jobs. (http://bit.ly/1ulfGz)

Based on the Obama Administration’s December 2008 estimates regarding job creation, the ARRA funds spent to date should have created 640,000 jobs. Thursday’s numbers represent a shortfall of 609,617 jobs.

A 600,000 job gap between estimates and reality would truly be disgusting. The first question would be: Where did the money actually go? There’s a huge difference between a $25,000 a year job and a $500,000 a year job. Maybe they were using some really awesome materials? No, that’s not the case at all. The truth is that $16 billion in contracts have been awarded. Only $2.2 billion has been paid out. Yes, that still means that the original estimates were almost 3x optimistic, but that makes a lot of sense.

The article does eventually mention that big corporations get money set aside for small businesses, but it provides no meaningful data on the issue (in fact, it never even makes the claim that stimulus money has been spent in such a manner). Sad, really.

I just thought I’d highlight the faulty argument in case someone else takes it and runs with it. I prefer honest debates.