Donald Trump has three big problems, two of his own creation, one created by a ticking time bomb that Obama is leaving for him.

The first is his deal with Carrier—keep in the U.S. some although not all of the jobs the company was planning to move to Mexico, and we will arrange tax subsidies by the state of Indiana, repeal regulations you don’t like, keep in mind your “cooperation” when doling out government contracts, and who knows what else. Carrier is to keep in Indiana about 800 of the 2,100 jobs it was planning to move to Mexico, in return for a subsidy of seven million dollars from Indiana’s taxpayers. To make the deal look good— “1,000 jobs saved” is a lot better headline than “more than 60 percent of Carrier jobs to move to Mexico”—Carrier agreed to leave in Indiana 300 R&D jobs that it had no intention of taking south. Seven million dollars to buy 800 jobs comes to less than $9,000 per job, not a bad deal as these things go, especially since some of it will be recovered from taxes on the wages of the workers whose jobs are saved. Better still, the beneficiaries know who they are, and are publically and appropriately thankful to Trump, while the taxpayers bearing the cost won’t hardly notice. And if they do, Mike Pence’s successor will have to explain it all to them.