The Magically Appearing Stimulus Jobs
EmailABC News’ Rick Klein reports: We’ve long been wondering what taxpayers would get for their $18 million Website redesign at Recovery.gov. ABC’s Jonathan Karl is reporting on one thing we never guessed might have been purchased: Jobs created in congressional districts that do not exist. There’s Arizona’s 15th Congressional District, where 30 jobs have been saved or created with just $761,420 in federal stimulus spending, according to Recovery.gov. Arizona only has eight House seats. So the $34 million that Recovery.gov tells us was spent in the state’s 86th district is equally incredible. Another gem: More than $36 million in stimulus funds spent between the 69th and 99th districts of the Northern Mariana Islands — a self-governing US territory that gets only one (non-voting) representative in the House. (Did Jack Abramoff do a better lobbying job than anyone could have imagined?) These figures seem more likely to be data-entry errors than evidence of fraud or corruption. But for an administration that’s prided itself on scrupulous accounting surrounding everything connected to the stimulus, mistakes like these contribute to suspicions that counting jobs “saved or created” is more art than science. And there’s more in that vein today: ABC’s Matthew Jaffe reports that the administration has been forced to slice 60,000 jobs from its most recent report on stimulus spending because of what officials deemed to be “unrealistic data” flowing in from stimulus recipients.
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This is just depressing. Can they just stop the stimulus and pay down our debt with what they still have left.
I would also appreciate it if all the fools who voted for the stimulus and told us how great it would be for the country would remove themselves from the health care debate and vote because of their gross incompetence.
Posted by: wow | November 16, 2009, 4:06 pm 4:06 pm
There has never been any truth in the Democratic party.
However, this actually smacks of defrauding the taxpayer.
Posted by: Rick McDaniel | November 16, 2009, 4:30 pm 4:30 pm
This is a disgrace. But this is not too much differenet than the sham affordable housing units built with money obtained by Obama and managed by Valerie Jarrett and Antonio Rezco, this time they apparently are not even attempting to build anything as a front…just someone sticking it in their pockets. If this doesn’t wake people up to the fraud going on before our very eyes then nothing will.
Posted by: david | November 16, 2009, 5:12 pm 5:12 pm
this is from the man who was on harvard law review. he knows what he is doing and its by design. wake up before we are completely fleeced.
Posted by: catman | November 16, 2009, 5:28 pm 5:28 pm
I would like to know if they have created one real job,one that doesn’t vanish once all the Stimulus money is gone.
Posted by: Johnny L | November 16, 2009, 6:14 pm 6:14 pm
The very first rule of O.S.L. is never put any thing in writting that you would want to deny later.
Posted by: earl | November 16, 2009, 6:36 pm 6:36 pm
Thanks for the post and for sharing the very resourceful information, its really awesome.
Posted by: Tag44 | November 17, 2009, 2:24 am 2:24 am
An omen of their health care management skills.
Posted by: TX_MBell | November 17, 2009, 4:24 pm 4:24 pm
“These figures seem more likely to be data-entry errors than evidence of fraud or corruption.”
Yeah, Riiiiiiiight, Rick! Those poor folks don’t know what congressional district they live in so they just picked a number out of thin air for government reporting purposes.
Posted by: Francis Hopkinson | November 17, 2009, 5:02 pm 5:02 pm
Wow – So let me make sure I understand this – you guys are bent out of shape because of a few minor typos on a website.. (which cost too much IMHO, but that’s another story).
Comparing the data entry skills of a low-paid worker (a job created by stimulus, maybe a cousin of yours?) to the kind of management a healthcare system would receive is a bit of a stretch – and how quickly we forget the money going out the door to fund two overseas wars… BOATLOADS of cash that would have been better spent on paperclips and string then on another useless wars.
Americans get what they deserve: Poor management from both parties and all levels of elected officials. You want change? Vote with your brains instead of your 5 second talking points.
Posted by: Eric | November 17, 2009, 8:21 pm 8:21 pm
Eric wrote: “Wow – So let me make sure I understand this – you guys are bent out of shape because of a few minor typos on a website.”
Eric, you’re ASSUMING these are typos reponsible for these non-existent districts, with no real evidence to back up that assumption. The others are ASSUMING they’re intentional fraud, with no real evidence to back it up. So, Eric, you’re just as bad as they are.
Posted by: Brian | November 18, 2009, 1:38 am 1:38 am
I miss the President George W. Bush. If this happen with the myth districts of federal money, Congress would be on tv rushing to start an invesagation on where did the money go to. But good thing this happen under President Obama. America doesn’t need to know where this money went to. After all, the Democrats are for the working people. And, all of those jobs all that money started made a large difference. However, I know that President Bush will be blamed for the whole problem. After all, it was President Bush that Mr. Obama was elected in the first place. If President Bush had won a third term then President Obama wouldn’t have been there to take the blame in the first place. Who knew?
Posted by: Darrell Mc Neill | November 18, 2009, 2:40 am 2:40 am