Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Obama Administration Touts Federal Stimulus Spending For Non-Existing Indiana Districts

State GOP Chairman Murray Clark has a little fun with the discovery that Indiana has been awarded $5 million in stimulus spending for congressional districts that don't even exist. Clark quips in a press release:

Earlier this year, Democrats promised America that the unprecedented level of spending in the federal stimulus bill would be administered with the highest level of accountability and transparency. Despite their promises, errors and dubious account abound. This week we have learned that over $5 million of stimulus funds were reported as having been spent in Indiana Congressional Districts 00, 10, 11, 14 and 18, districts that do not exist."

"Reps. Joe Donnelly and Baron Hill voted for the so-called stimulus and its massive spending increases. What's troubling is that it continues to fall short of what the Democrats in Washington told the country. The reporting errors are an underlying symptom of the larger problem. As such, Reps. Donnelly and Hill owe an explanation to Hoosiers."
I'm not sure why the GOP always omits U.S. Rep. Andre Carson's votes whenever criticizing U.S Reps. Donnelly or Hill. He also voted for the stimulus plan. Clark's press release quotes from a Kokomo Perspective online story quoting U.S. Rep. Dan Burton's press release. Burton had this to say:

Back when President Obama first addressed the Congress after his inauguration, he said that Vice President Joe Biden would oversee the Stimulus spending because, 'Nobody messes with Joe.'

"Well, I think President Obama should know that somebody has messed with Joe. The imaginary 00, 10th, 11th, 14th, and 18th Congressional Districts of Indiana have, according to recovery.gov, made a tax dollar windfall of about $5.3 million, and 'created or saved' 9 jobs - all of which obviously can't exist in these fake districts.

"From the beginning, I said this program would be exposed to rampant waste, fraud, and abuse. Now, as we see these magical numbers from the Obama Administration, how can we ever be convinced that this money will be accounted for and given proper oversight? The answer is simply this: we can't.

"It's time to pack up this program, save the President from further embarrassments, use the remaining funds to pay down the debt and deficits, and cut taxes on capital gains, small businesses, and individuals so we can be 100% sure the money is used to create real jobs in real Congressional Districts.

5 comments:

Downtown Indy said...

Wonder how many imaginary voters have cast votes in those imaginary districts?

patriot paul said...

For a shocking national accounting of the FAKE jobs, the Washington Examiner carries a good documented listing, citing over 75,000 fake jobs. http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/maps/Bogus-jobs-created-or-saved-by-the-Stimulus.html
Even Democrats are outraged "Rep. David Obey, D-Wisc, who chairs the powerful House appropriations Committee, issued a paper statement demanding that the recovery.gov Web site be updated.

"The inaccuracies on recovery.gov that have come to light are outrageous and the Administration owes itself, the Congress, and every American a commitment to work night and day to correct the ludicrous mistakes," according to ABC News. In fact, for a shocking report on a massive amount of bogus jobs, here is the link: http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/jobs-saved-created-congressional-districts-exist/story?id=9097853

Anonymous said...

You know, don't you, that the imaginary districts were the result of errors on the reporters part, right? And you don't care that you're spreading disinformation?

Gary R. Welsh said...

I know the administration has already admitted the inaccurate numbers of jobs claimed to be created from the stimulus spending and has rounded down those numbers by more than 60,000 jobs.

Downtown Indy said...

Why, no, I DON'T know the information is from a 'reporter's mistake.'

Kokomo Perspective article

"The following information is from Recovery.gov:

Indiana Congressional District Stimulus funding:

District 00 - $1,265,575 in funds, 0 jobs

District 10 - $1,219,765 in funds, 8 jobs

District 11 - $40,487 in funds, 0 jobs

District 14 - $217,914 in funds, 1 job

District 18 - $2,244,240 in funds, 0 jobs"

I pored over the recovery.gov website and eventually found '15,397 jobs created/saved' under the Dept of Education heading. The vast majority of that for 'Board of School Commissioners of The City of Indianapolis (inc).'

And the stated purpose of the money? "Ensure that each homeless child and youth has equal access to the same free appropriate public education, including a public preschool education, as other children and youth."

Which, and please correct me if I'm wrong, is something they already had.

The ones I checked (there are many) were 'not started' so the job counts are predictions, not facts.

The starting point for my inquiries was recovery.gov recipients and I clicked the '+' beside 'Indiana.'