During the February 15 broadcast of ABC's This Week, host George Stephanopoulos did not challenge Sen. Lindsey Graham's (R-SC) claim that “11 percent of the appropriated money in the [economic recovery] bill hits in 2009.” Stephanopoulos did not ask Graham to support that claim or point out that according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), approximately 15 percent of the total spending in the bill and 23 percent of all spending and tax cuts included in the bill will take effect by September 30, the end of fiscal year 2009. Stephanopoulos also uncritically quoted South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford's (R) claim that “For every job the bill creates, American taxpayers will spend $223,000”; Stephanopoulos has previously cited a similar cost per job figure. However, those figures discount tangible benefits of the stimulus package besides job creation -- such as infrastructure improvements and education, health, and public safety investments -- and economists have said that the actual cost per job will be far less than either figure Stephanopoulos mentioned.

According to a February 13 CBO report on the conference agreement for the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, the approximately $787 billion bill includes roughly $120 billion in outlays or spending projects that will take effect in fiscal year 2009 -- that is about 15 percent of the total cost of the bill. Further, when also accounting for approximately $65 billion in reduced revenues or tax cuts that will take effect in fiscal 2009, roughly $185 billion or 23 percent of the total stimulus package will take effect by September 30, 2009.

In addition to excluding other tangible benefits of the stimulus package, the cost-per-job figures Stephanopoulos cited are inflated for another reason, according to Center for Economic Policy Research co-director Dean Baker and Nobel laureate Paul Krugman. As Media Matters has noted, both Baker and Krugman have pointed out that if the stimulus bill strengthens the economy as predicted, this will lead to higher tax receipts that should be accounted for in cost per job estimates, meaning that the true cost per job is less than $70,000.

From the February 15 broadcast of ABC's This Week:

STEPHANOPOULOS: And I'm going to begin with your governor, Mark Sanford, big opponent of the stimulus legislation, and I want to show everybody what he wrote in this morning's State newspaper in South Carolina. He says that, “For every job the bill creates, American taxpayers will spend $223,000. If we add the cost of this bill to the previous efforts of the federal government to deal with the financial crisis, the American taxpayer is on the hook for $9.7 trillion ... If the stimulus bill were a country, it would be the 15th-largest country in the world.”

Senator Schumer, he says it's going to be a waste, it's not going to work, and we're going to be paying for it for generations.

SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY): Well, you know, it's easy to say no. This is the worst economy we've had since the Great Depression. Half a million people, more, losing jobs every month. The economy's hurtling southward. Yes, this is a big, strong, bold package. It's going to do three things. It's going to keep or create 3 or 4 million jobs. It's going to put money into the hands of the middle class so they spend it in the stores and restaurants and get the economy going. And it's going to create an infrastructure that not only puts people to work but leaves something after, God willing, we get out of this. To do nothing risks a depression.

STEPHANOPOULOS: So what's wrong with that?

GRAHAM: Well I wanted to do something. I think we do need a stimulus package with a focus, and that's to create jobs in the near-term. 11 percent of the appropriated money in this bill hits in 2009. Most of the money in this bill is in entitlement spending; it's not going to create jobs. Twenty-seven percent of the bill is now tax cuts. That's down significantly. And of those tax cuts, most of them -- only $3 billion goes to small business. Seventy-five percent of the people in this country work for small business. Of a $787 billion bill, $3 billion is directed towards small-business people. I think we missed the mark a long way. We increased new government. We did not increase new jobs.

STEPHANOPOULOS: And Congressman Waters, when this bill came out of the Senate, at the end of the week, your speaker, Nancy Pelosi, had to quell a mini-revolt among House Democrats who actually take an opposite view from Senator Graham. They thought this bill wasn't big enough and they didn't like the cuts, particularly in state aid, education aid that came in the Senate.