Ron Brownstein writes in the May 8th National Journal:

Republicans who say that President Obama’s stimulus plan hasn’t created any jobs must ignore not only the Congressional Budget Office (whose latest estimate put the total as high as 2.1 million) but also the more immediate examples of Marco Rubio and Pat Toomey.

The stimulus may very well end up helping Toomey and Rubio become Senators, but Brownstein fails to report just how easy the CBO’s stimulus job numbers are easy to ignore. As The Heritage Foundation’s Brian Riedl reported on March 26th:

CBO director Doug Elmendorf has finally conceded that they never actual examined this stimulus bills’ affect on the economy. Responding to a questioner following a recent speech, he admitted that the CBO’s jobs count was “essentially repeating the same exercise” as their initial projections. When asked if this means their jobs projections would have ignored any failures of stimulus spending to perform as CBO predicted, Mr. Elmendorf responded “that’s right.” (Exchange begins at 38:20.)

CBO never actually counted the jobs. Nor did their analysis take into account the rising unemployment rate. Or the economic figures. Or how effectively the money was spent. They merely assumed this government spending “must have” saved 1.5 million jobs.

An asteroid could have destroyed the entire Unites States outside of Washington, D.C., and (as long as the money was spent), the CBO’s model would have still claimed the stimulus saved 1.5 million jobs.