Who’s minding the money?
In its bid for transparency, the federal government has overshot the mark into the realm of ghostlike data and vanishing results.
The website, recovery.gov is a gold mine of information concerning the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
And misinformation.
You can lose yourself for hours drilling into all the information available.
And sometimes the information can be confusing.
And perplexing.
And questionable.
For example, as of Oct. 30 through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, New York has received $10,588,302,004 with 40,710.45 jobs created/saved.
But on the page that shows the nation in map form, New York was awarded $10,599,030,000 and has so far received $1,270,830,000. The number of jobs created/saved is 40,620.
Â
OK, probably just an oversight, but if we are to track the money, shouldn”™t the federal government”™s numbers gibe? To paraphrase a well-known saying, a million dollars here, a million dollars there, and pretty soon you”™re talking serious money.
Â
Let”™s take a look at the numbers for New York”™s 71st Congressional District: 44.5 jobs were created with a half-million dollars in stimulus money.
How can that be in a state that has 29 congressional districts?
And it gets worse: 10 other nonexistent congressional districts are included.
The Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity points out that $6.4 billion was allocated to 440 districts that do not exist. But maybe they do in our 52nd and 54th states.
So where exactly is that money? Hard to say.
Better pull out that asterisk.
According to recovery.org, New York is second to California when it comes to jobs created/saved. California had 110,185 jobs created/saved.
The government got into some trouble when it started ballyhooing the number of jobs created. It seems all were not true job creations, thus the introduction of the slash mark to allay critics.
In recent weeks, the administration subtracted thousands of so-called created jobs.
Â
Discrepancies in congressional districts notwithstanding, the bigger question is how much bang for the buck is the federal government getting for doling out billions?
Â
Looking at Westchester County, its $206,276,793 has created/saved 198.98 jobs. That created/saved category is a hazy way of accounting. Are those 199 jobs worth $206 million? Were there even 199 jobs saved?
In Dutchess, $167,509,061 has created/saved 122.27 jobs.
In Orange, $102,623,463 saved/created 67.71 jobs.
Putnam”™s $8,992,256 created/saved 60.
Rockland”™s $66,821,982 created/saved 41.95.
Ulster”™s $40,716,127 created/saved 9.2.
Some don”™t even create jobs, such as the town of Yorktown”™s $158,100 stimulus funding for a project that appears to concern energy efficiency. We say appears because the grant summary is 480 words in length and addresses obliquely some sort of solar project in the town without giving specifics. Nonetheless, the feds thought it would be good to fork over the money.
Last week, House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey, a Democrat from Wisconsin, said:
“We designed the Recovery Act to be open and transparent and I expect the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board, who oversees the recovery act website and data to have information that is accurate, reliable and understandable to the American public. Whether the numbers are good news or bad news, I want the honest numbers and I want them now.”
Good luck with that request.