Dr. Mike Walden, North Carolina Cooperative Extension economist in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at N.C. State University, responds:

"Well, one thing that we should recognize here is that at any point in time the economy has only limited resources, a limited amount of money. So let's say that someone proposes a new government program to create jobs, and that program is going to be funded with new taxes. So what you're doing is you're taking those funds from the private sector - you're collecting them in taxes - and you're going to transfer them to the government, and the government is going to use those funds to create jobs. Now even if that program were successful, and the jobs were created, there is what economists call an opportunity cost. That is to say, if those tax monies had been left in private hands instead, clearly those expenditures would have created some jobs. So you have to balance the two. You have to say, 'Alright, if we have a government program that's going to create jobs, Will that program create more jobs than if the monies had been left in private hands and spent, thereby creating jobs.' And so you have to balance those two, compare those two, but do always remember, there is this opportunity cost. Money spent by the government could have been spent somewhere else."