More Stimulus Spending Madness—$738,000 for Each Job Created by US DOT

The Daily Caller videoed U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood asserting that he is "very proud" that his agency created new jobs at cost $738,000 using Obama stimulus funding. From the Daily Caller:

Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood told The Daily Caller that he is "very proud" of the Economic Recovery Act of 2009 that put 65,000 people to work with $48 billion in federal funds for the Department of Transportation, amounting to $738,461 per job.

The Recovery Act of 2009, which in total cost taxpayers $825 billion, has been criticized because it did not prevent the unemployment rate from rising above 8 percent, contrary to what the Obama administration predicted.

"Yeah, we spent $48 billion and we put 65,000 people to work in 15,000 projects in two years with no problems," LaHood told The Daily Caller in a video interview in Alexandria, Va., on Friday. "I'm very proud of that. I know that the governors can spend this money because over two years we gave them $48 billion, they created 65,000 jobs in 15,000 projects. This is doable. We're going to get the money out and get people to work."

A general benchmark is that investing $1 million in the private sector generates 10 new jobs, which means that the DOT "investments" fell short by more that 400,000 jobs. Paraphrasing the bitter joke about stock brokers: "The Feds are going to keeping investing our money until it's all gone."