VP Biden was in New Hampshire yesterday to laud the project to weatherize homes with economic stimulus funds. The occasion was the completion of the 200,000th home finished.
“So we are picking up the pace. We are weatherizing 20 to 30-thousand homes each month. At that pace we will hit our goal of weatherizing 600-thousand homes. Look folks, weatherizing is a no brainer,” he said.
The stimulus set aside $5 billion for weatherization. Biden says besides conserving energy, the investment has also created 13,000 jobs.
New Hampshire GOP chairman John Sununu immediately took a crack at Biden and the stimulus using very deceptive math. He told reporters the Vice President’s math translates to $385,000 spent for every job created, which he said is unsustainable.
What he didn't say is that he pretended the money was spent only on wages, not materials, and the work was done by one person per house. He further pretends the entire $5 billion was spent on those 13,000 new jobs.
Those 13,000 jobs were created by existing contractors who hired new people to work with existing employees.
The actual cost of weatherizing 600,000 homes is an average of $8,333 per home, if all $5 billion is spent. Confusing apples with oranges is an old Republican trick--they know that most people will hear the mind-numbing figures and not check the phony math. Remember the wild calculations done by Bush and friends about Social Security back in 2000? Check this as well
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