Today The White House said it believed the $787 billion stimulus package (or the “Un-stimulating Stimulus” package as we dubbed it in our 2/16/09 analysis) saved or created 650,000 jobs. This “belief” is based upon review of state and local projects and activities paid for by the stimulus such as education funding, highway repairs and construction projects.

To date only $150 billion of the planned $787 billion has been spent. A quick back of the envelope calculation yields a cost of $230,769 per job. Yikes, those are expensive jobs!

A better use of $150 billion would have been to cut taxes on small businesses – the very engine of job creation in our country. Assuming a median income of $40,000 per employee businesses could have created 3.75 million jobs.

Once again we have proof that money is better spent by the private sector.