Thinkin’bout Stuff

Data keeps coming in about how the “stimulus”, touted by team Obama as a huge success beyond Biden’s wildest dreams, has predictably failed to stimulate anything except liberal appetites for wealth redistribution.

Yet another example from the latest enemy of the administration, the Associated Press:

From Fox News – The Obama administration on Thursday slammed a report from The Associated Press alleging the government had overstated by thousands the number of jobs it has created or saved with federal contracts under President Obama’s $787 billion recovery program.

The White House seized on an initial report from a government oversight board weeks ago that claimed federal contracts awarded to businesses under the recovery plan already had helped pay for more than 30,000 jobs. The administration said the number was evidence that the stimulus program had exceeded early expectations toward reaching the president’s promise of creating or saving 3.5 million jobs by the end of next year.

30,000 is a great start on reaching 3.5 million?  They must be expecting some pretty major acceleration in job growth.  As we demonstrated in earlier posts, even if the 30,000 number was true, the number of jobs is dropping fast:

So how is gaining 30,000 jobs while losing over 3 million jobs exceeding expectations?  Must be some pretty damn low expectations.

Unfortunately the 30,000 figure is a lie.  I would have said the administration was mistaken, but I noticed that the politically correct thing to say these days is “lie”.  For example, saw this on the DNC website today:

After fighting health reform with lies, deceit, and multi-million dollar ad campaigns, the health insurance lobby — America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) — recently released a report on the “effects of health reform.”

Just going with the flow here….

As I was saying, the Democrats have been lying about the jobs numbers, which were already weak, and their latest “Mission Accomplished” moment is sadly nothing more than smoke and mirrors.

Maybe this was just another in a long line of honest mistakes… or maybe not so much:

• A Colorado company said it created 4,231 jobs with the help of Obama’s economic recovery plan. The real number: fewer than 1,000.
• A child care center in Florida said it saved 129 jobs with the help of stimulus money. Instead, it gave pay raises to its existing employees.
• Officials at East Central Technical College in Douglas, Ga., said they now know they shouldn’t have claimed 280 stimulus jobs linked to more than $200,000 to buy three semi-trucks and trailers for commercial driving instruction, and a modular classroom and bathroom for a health education program.
• Elsewhere in the U.S., some jobs credited to the stimulus program were counted two, three, four or even more times.
• The San Joaquin, Calif., Regional Rail Commission reported creating or saving 125 jobs as part of a stimulus project to lay railroad track. Because the project drew from two pools of money, the commission reported that figure twice, bringing the total to 250.
• Barbara Moore, executive director of the Child Care Association of Brevard County in Cocoa, Fla., reported that the $98,669 she received in stimulus money saved 129 jobs at her center, though the cash was used to give her 129 employees a 3.9 percent cost-of-living raise. She said she needed to boost their salaries because some workers had left for better paying jobs.
• Colorado-based Teletech Government Solutions had worked with the Federal Communications Commission to come up with a job count for its $28.3 million contract for call centers fielding consumer questions about conversion of televisions to receive digital signals. The company reported creating 4,231 jobs — the highest number listed in the first stimulus accounting — even though 3,000 of those workers received a paycheck for five weeks or less.

OK.. perhaps “lies” is too strong a word… let’s go with “incompetence”