The most recent absurdity of the great recession is the $10 billion allocated by Congress to save 140,000 teachers' jobs in a bill nominally concerned with aviation safety. Well-intentioned though it may be, the measure is wrongheaded on two fronts. First, it's unclear that these jobs needed "saving"; indeed, some states are gleefully figuring out how to spend the unanticipated windfall. Second, federal stimulus spending of this sort can have only a short-term impact on employment. If we are serious about creating jobs, we need to rethink the problem from the start.
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