WH: Stimulus “Created” 150,000 Jobs. Or Maybe Just “Saved” Them. Whatever.

The sentence where the Reuters hack was parroting the White House’s tangled “expects another 600,000 jobs to be created or saved” – that’s when the article slipped into outright self-caricature:

The U.S. economic stimulus plan has created or saved 150,000 jobs since it was enacted 100 days ago, top White House economic officials said on Wednesday, relying on projections instead of an actual tally of workers. President Barack Obama pressed the U.S. Congress to pass the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act this winter with the promise it would generate or retain at least 3 million jobs… The White House, Bernstein said, is projecting what the level of employment would have been if the stimulus had not passed in February. It is then comparing that baseline to actual employment numbers. Using that method, Bernstein also expects another 600,000 jobs to be created or saved in the next 100 days.

Still not as entertaining as the White House’s inscrutable distinction between a strong and a sound economy.

Apropos of that – and of the way that the media shamelessly spun it in The One’s favor – maybe the next round of stimulus money should go to Obama’s worshipful MSM sycophants. Flipping their framing has done precisely as much to save jobs as the Democrats’ ongoing Europeanization of America, especially if you project out their negative Bush-era coverage. And by “precisely as much” I mean “we have no idea because that’s a formulation based on intentionally pessimistic models compared with garbage jobless statistics”:

A far more accurate title: “Economists Produce Wild Predictions On Job Growth, Liberals Eat Them Up”… Count me among the sceptics, at least when it comes to job-creation numbers. One of the economists prominently cited in the Post piece is Mark Zandi, the chief economist of Moody’s Economy.com, “whose analyses have been cited by White House officials as well as congressional Democrats”. And here’s Mr Zandi speaking about those analyses: “The models are based on historic experience,” said Mark Zandi, referring to formulas he and other economists use to predict economic behavior. “And we’re outside anything we’ve experienced historically. We’re completely in a world we don’t understand and know.”

At least the GOP estimates demonstrating that cap and trade will melt down the economy have been confirmed. It would be so awkward if the Democrats passed it, then the economy melted down, then we found out. Better to know beforehand so no one’s tempted to write those tired “now they tell us!” posts.

References and previously after the jump…

References:
* Economic stimulus has created, saved 150,000 jobs: White House [Reuters]
* Video: WH spokesman explains difference between economy being “strong” and “sound”
* McCain: Out-of-Touch and Borderline Senile for Claiming "Fundmentals of Economy are Strong" Obama: Optimism-Spreading Financial Genius for Saying Economy "Fundmentally Sound" [Ace]
* Financial Times: Gee Willickers, It Turns Out the Economy Depends a Lot on Psychology and Optimism [Ace]
* How many jobs will the stimulus create? [Democracy In America / Economist]
* On second thought, GOP cap-and-trade cost estimates on the money [Hot Air]