Stimulus: Federal Watchdog Says Jobs Reports Inaccurate

USAToday reported November 19 that reports concerning the number of jobs saved or created by President Obama's $787 billion stimulus package are "riddled with inaccuracies and contradictions" according to Earl Devaney, chairman of the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board which is charged with overseeing stimulus spending.

The story says, "In late October, the administration reported that the first recipients of stimulus grants, contracts or loans created or saved more than 640,000 jobs. Recipients of tax breaks and aid such as unemployment insurance are not required to report, so the job numbers cover only about $47 billion of the $173 billion spent by Sept. 30. USA TODAY was among those that found examples of errors in that data, such as a Texas housing authority mistakenly reporting 450 jobs created by a $26,000 roofing project that actually employed six people."

This isn't the first report we've seen like this. How many will it take before the administration acknowledges that the stimulus has been an abject failure? That wasn't a serious question. This administration will NEVER acknowledge that it just wasted nearly a trillion dollars of taxpayer money.

The story continues: "The acting head of the Government Accountability Office (GAO), Gene Dodaro, told the committee his investigators found 3,978 reports where recipients reported creating a total of 58,386 jobs without spending any money. Another 9,247 reports covering $965 million in spending listed no jobs created or saved, Dodaro said."

Seriously? Nearly 4,000 reports where no money was spent but jobs were claimed to have been created? How is that possible? The degree of inaccuracy is so great that I can't help but wonder if there is a concerted effort on the part of Obama supporters, and perhaps on the part of the administration itself, to pad the numbers to make the president's plan look better than it really is?

USAToday says, "Devaney said he also was concerned about the 'considerable number' of stimulus recipients who didn't file the required reports, suggesting that Congress consider penalizing them. He said the board was collecting the names of the non-filers and would post them on its website. The White House Office of Management and Budget estimates that the 130,000 reports represented more than 90% of the recipients required to file. One of the biggest problems was confusion among recipients on how to calculate the number of jobs saved or created, said Dodaro, whose office is the investigative arm of Congress. Recipients are supposed to translate the number of hours worked into the equivalent of full-time jobs, but many were confused about how to do that, Dodaro said."

Not to worry. The Obama administration is going to issue new guidance to clarify how jobs should be calculated and reported. Just one question: shouldn't that have been done up front, before any money was disbursed?

"Devaney said the errors will help officials avoid such mistakes in the future. 'The principal downside of transparency is embarrassment, and there's plenty of that to go around,' he said."

No kidding.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2009-11-19-stimulus-jobs_N.htm?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=Morning%2BBell