Unintended consequences

When President Barack Obama pressed Congress to pass his $787 billion economic stimulus plan, he touted that millions of “shovel ready” jobs were just waiting for someone to fill them.

It’s been four months since Congress put this country in a huge deficit never seen before — including during the George W. Bush years when the deficit ballooned by $700 billion. (The Obama deficit is expected to be four times that.) But it appears that the 2 to 3 million jobs that were supposed to be saved or created have yet to materialize at the hands of the almighty government.

In Virginia, which is facing its own $77 billion deficit over the next two years, the De-partment of Transportation is having to slash about 1,000 jobs and shut down two dozen rest stops just to make ends meet. All this, while our state’s roads crumble, and gridlock becomes the norm from the Beltway in Northern Virginia to the tunnels of Hampton Roads. Seems like we’re not getting much for our money that Mr. Obama promised.

About the same time Obama was touting massive deficits for magical jobs in March, one private company that reluctantly had taken Troubled Asset Relief Program funds was just about to put some of that money to good use.

The company: JPMorgan Chase.

It’s plan: Spend $120 million to purchase two new Gulfstream 650 corporate jets and spend another $18 million for a hangar renovation.

“It’s a remarkably boneheaded decision,” Nell Minow, a “corporate watchdog” who’s also a film reviewer, told ABC. “It’s completely tone deaf.”

Editorial writers and politicians vilified JPMorgan Chase for daring to even think about spending taxpayers money on something as useless as “luxury” private aircraft for its corporate fat cats.

Instead, we suppose, JPMorgan Chase was to somehow help grow the economy by taking taxpayers’ money and giving it to people with bad credit, or no credit, to help them buy houses and cars and knickknacks they couldn’t afford.

So after much scorn by the public and politicians, JPMorgan Chase backed off and decided to spend its TARP money on “better” uses.

Well, the roosters have come home to roost. Not so much for JPMorgan Chase, but for the nation’s aircraft makers.

In March, Gulfstream announced that it was laying off 1,200 workers and furloughing another 1,500 employees over the summer. Cessna Aircraft Co., the nation’s largest builder of corporate jets, announced June 4 that it’s planning another round of layoffs and possibly more furloughs. Cessna already has laid off 44 percent of its workforce.

“… The industry continues to struggle as the economic recovery remains very slow and the negative perception surrounding business jets creates a battle to keep our customers sold,” Cessna CEO Jack Pelton wrote in an e-mail, according to the Associated Press.

Yep, the politicians and editorial writers sure showed JPMorgan Chase and others like it how wrong they were. Since the recession began in December 2007, the country has lost 5.7 million jobs and the unemployment rate is expected to peak at more than 10 percent by the time it’s all said and done.

But at least some rich banker will have to make do with his aging aircraft. That should make us all feel better.

Right?