Some of you know that I own an office building in Union NJ (BTW - if you want good, cheap office space 20 minutes out of NYC send me an email). Union NJ besides being Artie Lange's hometown is a decent, middle class, blue collar town. If there was a perfect town that Obama's so called Stimulus plan would help it would be Union NJ. It is a very Democratic town - having a Democratic Mayor since 1973. Union is split at the legislative district between Republican Leonard Lance (Lance's district goes way out to my exit off of Route 78 - a long 30 minutes from Union) and a Democrat. Again the perfect town for a stimulus package supposedly targeted at small business, entrepreneurs, and the middle class. And it is my ideal litmus test for Obama's Stimulus package.
A casual ride through town shows the beautiful center of town filled with empty shops. In fact, right across the street on Stuyvesant Avenue from my favorite pork store, Lutz's there is nearly an entire row of vacant stores. These stores have been vacant for most of the past year. Sadly there is always parking in the town lots and this was never the case. The town center is very quiet and while it definitely isn't as fancy as Westfield's center or Red Bank's center, it has good middle class stores, bakeries, book stores, etc. Unfortunately, I can't remember the last time I stood in line for any of them.
My own office building has been about 1/3 vacant for the last year. It is primarily a dental office building, but I have a few other small businesses in there. It is the perfect place to start a business - free public parking, our own parking lot, on Morris Avenue, 1 block from the Center. and cheap rates. My first new renter starts in January and that was someone who was subleasing some space. I also have a very strong lead from another dentist which would be my first real new renter in over 18 months.
And that's why the lack of new jobs created by Obama gets me angry. Yes back to the stimulus which Obama and Biden promised would create jobs. The stimulus which Obama said the do nothing model would result in high unemployment, yet unemployment has continued to skyrocket. Obama's lack of stimulus plan has only resulted in increasing government spending. Sure, some liberals (including Biden and Obama) will tell you that job loss has stopped and while that is true, the Stimulus has failed to create new jobs which is why unemployment remains high.
I typed in Union NJ's main zipcode (07083) into Recovery.org and you know what I found? $12.7 million in Obama Stimulus package money and 7 DAMN JOBS CREATED. 7 FRIGGIN JOBS. That's $1.8 million per job!!!!
How long does the USA have to wait for real job growth? When is this President going to help real businesses hire people instead of throwing on top of us more risky plans like ObamaCare, Cap and Trade, TARP, etc. When will the President and his economic advisers going to realize that by giving big businesses money (TARP), they will fix their balance sheets first so they create wealth for themselves and their stockholders rather than hire more people. When is the President going to understand as one of my tenants said the other day "I've never been hired by a poor person to paint their office" and that instead of taking antagonistic postures to business he should be working harder?
Right now Obama's Stimulus Plan has been anything but a stimulus. In fact, if Viagra stimulated this little, it could have only been marketed by snake oil salesman and late night infomercials.
PardonMyFrench,
Eric
