Hope and Change...For a Week

You'd better discount any "jobs saved or created" numbers you're hearing from Democrats. I imagine what's going on in Oregon is going on around the country:

PORTLAND, Ore. — How much are politicians straining to convince people that the government is stimulating the economy? In Oregon, where lawmakers are spending $176 million to supplement the federal stimulus, Democrats are taking credit for a remarkable feat: creating 3,236 new jobs in the program’s first three months.

But those jobs lasted on average only 35 hours, or about one work week. After that, those workers were effectively back unemployed, according to an Associated Press analysis of state spending and hiring data. By the state’s accounting, a job is a job, whether it lasts three hours, three days, three months, or a lifetime.

Make work jobs that last only a few days or even weeks do little if anything to stimulate the economy. They might make a few Democrats feel proud of themselves, but that's about it.