Jolie Rouge

Stimulapalooza: 3.6 Million Jobs Lost is “Quite Positive"
October 16, 2009 03:54 PM

Conn Carroll at Heritage’s Foundry blog breaks down the stimulus spin from the White House today: http://blog.heritage.org/2009/10/15/...uite-positive/




” Update: Errors galore

On stimulus jobs reporting, a big 'Oops'
Error in Recovery Act accounting raises doubts about government's ability to precisely track the flow of funds and jobs.
By David Goldman, CNNMoney.com staff writer
Last Updated: October 16, 2009: 4:53 PM ET

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Gaffes in federal reports this week about stimulus have called into question the government's ability to accurately track how many jobs are being created by the massive $787 billion Recovery Act.

The data in Thursday's reports were filled with mistakes, including an error that made it look like a French vaccine maker received the largest stimulus contract, $1.4 billion, when in fact it has gotten an award one-100th the size

Government research organization OMB Watch said its assessment of the reports revealed many inconsistencies in the job data.

"The data is rife with mistakes," said Craig Jennings, senior federal fiscal policy analyst at OMB Watch. "When you put out data that hasn't yet been checked, it undermines transparency, because you are putting out wrong information."

According to the Recovery Board, a non-profit, government-funded organization that operates stimulus data tracker recovery.gov, the government expected mistakes and is reviewing reports of them.

Uncovering how many jobs stimulus created is critical to the debate about the Recovery Act's value. Critics argue that the mammoth funding simply represents more government spending and is not effectively being used to create jobs. But proponents say stimulus is a crucial shot in the arm for the economy, and that the labor market would have fallen further without it.

"Understanding how many jobs are created will answer the very fair and important question, 'What return on our investment are we getting?' " said Christopher Mihm, the Government Accountability Office's managing director of strategic issues.

But the enormity of the stimulus bill leaves some experts saying it will be impossible to accurately portray the data. The sheer size of the reporting is dumbfounding: Tens of thousands of recipients will file reports after receiving stimulus funds from one of 28 government umbrella agencies, or from one of countless agencies from the 50 states.

Making it even more difficult to discover the true jobs number is a decision to put the responsibility of correcting mistakes on the stimulus recipients' shoulders. For transparency's sake, government agencies can point out errors but are powerless to change them. All of the data are under government review, and a report on the errors the agencies find will be available at the end of the month.

"It's important that those errors get caught before they get published, and right now they're still under review," said Jennings. "It's possible that some will be caught by the review, but it will take an incredible amount of man power just to sift through the data."

Recipients of stimulus funds were required to report how many jobs they saved or created and how much money they have received from government agencies by Oct. 10. The first sliver of that information was posted on recovery.gov on Thursday, with much more data to come on Oct. 30.

The contract awards posted Thursday represented less than 7% of the total stimulus funds doled out so far. By far the largest part of stimulus is in grants to states, which account for 83% of stimulus funding. Federal agencies and recipients are spending nearly three weeks reviewing these state reports to improve their accuracy before publishing them.

Loans to recipients make up the other 10%. Both grants and loans will be posted on recovery.gov at the end of the month.

There were 5,232 federal contracts reported Thursday, but 41,944 grants and loans will be reported on Oct. 30. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California recently said that his state alone submitted 5,747 reports from agencies and others who received funds from the state.

Mistake-prone reporting
A mistake in the very first contract listed on the site prompted doubts about the reliability of the reports.

Recovery.gov erroneously reported Thursday that French vaccine maker Sanofi Pasteur had received $1.4 billion in stimulus funds from the Department of Health and Human Services. The company topped the site's list titled "Largest federal contracts in U.S."

When CNNMoney.com first asked about the contract on Thursday, a spokeswoman from Sanofi Pasteur suspected the $1.4 billion figure was a mistake. HHS spokeswoman Vicki Rivas-Vazquez said the number on recovery.gov was erroneous and the actual amount was $10.4 million.

Sanofi Pasteur said Friday that $10.4 million is the correct figure.

"We anticipated errors in the reporting and so informed many reporters beforehand," said Edward Pound, spokesman for the Recovery Board. "This is the first time this kind of reporting is being done. These reports are being reviewed by federal agencies and recipients to catch any errors or problems."

The Recovery Board has the tall task of compiling all of the data, and is spending $18 million revamping its Web site to manage all of the information.

OMB Watch said its review yielded "really weird job numbers," including many discrepancies within the reports themselves. For instance, Jennings said OMB Watch found that many companies said in a narrative portion of their reports that it was able to retain several employees because of stimulus funds, but the "jobs created" column read "zero."

The Recovery Board aggregates its jobs data from the "jobs created" column to display the total number of jobs saved or created. Jennings speculated that recipients might have been confused about the scope of the term "created."

"I would not stake any sort of claims on those job numbers," said Jennings. "We don't know what's going on there."

Even the job figures that are input correctly do not always reflect the true number of positions created by stimulus funds.

For instance, UT-Battelle received a $338.7 million contract, listed as the fourth largest on the recovery.gov site. So far, the company, which manages Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee for the Department of Energy, has spent $13 million and created 41 jobs, mostly related to the oversight of subcontractors.

But the funding is actually creating many more jobs, said Thom Mason, UT-Battelle's CEO. Among the firm's first stimulus projects is the building of a chemistry and new materials research lab, which will employ 150 construction workers. None of these positions will appear on UT-Battelle's reports to the federal government.

"It's important that everyone reports on a consistent basis," said Mason, who expects to hire up to 4,000 subcontractors with stimulus funds. "The difficulty is that it gives you a number that's not really a realistic reflection of how many jobs are created."


http://money.cnn.com/2009/10/16/news...ion=2009101615

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Jolie Rouge

[b]Higher jobless rates could be new normal
By TOM RAUM - Associated Press writer
Published: Oct 19, 2009

http://www.2theadvocate.com/news/64784197.html


WASHINGTON (AP) -- Even with an economic revival, many U.S. jobs lost during the recession may be gone forever and a weak employment market could linger for years.

That could add up to a "new normal" of higher joblessness and lower standards of living for many Americans, some economists are suggesting.

The words "it's different this time" are always suspect. But economists and policy makers say the job-creating dynamics of previous recoveries can't be counted on now.

Here's why:

- The auto and construction industries helped lead the nation out of past recessions. But the carnage among Detroit's automakers and the surplus of new and foreclosed homes and empty commercial properties make it unlikely these two industries will be engines of growth anytime soon.

- The job market is caught in a vicious circle: Without more jobs, U.S. consumers will have a hard time increasing their spending; but without that spending, businesses might see little reason to start hiring.

- Many small and midsize businesses are still struggling to obtain bank loans, impeding their expansion plans and constraining overall economic growth.

- Higher-income households are spending less because of big losses on their homes, retirement plans and other investments. Lower-income households are cutting back because they can't borrow like they once did.

That the recovery in jobs will be long and drawn out is something on which economists and policy makers can basically agree, even as their proposals for remedies vary widely.

Retrenching businesses will be slow in hiring back or replacing workers they laid off. Many of the 7.2 million jobs the economy has shed since the recession began in December 2007 may never come back.

"This Great Recession is an inflection point for the economy in many respects. I think the unemployment rate will be permanently higher, or at least higher for the foreseeable future," said Mark Zandi, chief economist and co-founder of Moody's Economy.com.

"The collective psyche has changed as a result of what we've been through. And we're going to be different as a result," said Zandi, who formerly advised Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and now is consulted by Democrats in the administration and in Congress,

Even before the recession, many jobs had vanished or been shipped overseas amid a general decline of U.S. manufacturing. The severest downturn since the Great Depression has accelerated the process.

Many economists believe the recession reversed course in the recently ended third quarter and they predict modest growth in the nation's gross domestic product over the next few years. Yet the unemployment rate is currently at a 26-year high of 9.8 percent - and likely to top 10 percent soon and stay there a while.

"Many factors are pushing against a quick recovery," said Heidi Shierholz, an economist at the labor-oriented Economic Policy Institute. "Things will come back. But it's going to take a long time. I think we will likely see elevated unemployment at least until 2014."

At best, many economists see an economic recovery without a return to moderate unemployment. At worst, they suggest the fragile recovery could lose steam and drag the economy back under for a double-dip recession.

"We will need to grind out this recovery step by step," President Barack Obama said earlier this month.

Obama and congressional Democrats are having a hard time agreeing on how to keep the recovery going and help millions of unemployed workers - short of another round of stimulus spending amid rising voter alarm over soaring federal deficits.

So far, they've been unable to win even a simple three-month extension of unemployment insurance for people in states with jobless rates above 8.5 percent.

The extension easily passed the House earlier this month but is bogged down in the Senate over disputes over which states would get the funds. Hundreds of thousands of people have already lost their benefits or are about to lose them.

The White House credits the president's $787 billion stimulus plan passed in February for keeping job losses from becoming even worse. Since Obama took office in January, the economy has lost 3.4 million jobs.

Republicans argue that the stimulus program has not worked as a job producer and is a waste of tax money. And last week, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce launched a multimillion advertising campaign to celebrate small business entrepreneurs - and to argue that further government intervention will not spur permanent job growth.

Chamber leaders called for creation of more than 20 million new private-sector jobs over the next decade, saying it's needed to replace jobs lost in the recession and to keep pace with population growth.

"The government can support a few jobs in the short-run" while free enterprise is the only system that can create 20 million of them, said Thomas Donohue, the chamber president.

To many economists, such a goal seems unreachable given today's altered economic landscape.

"It's a new normal that U.S. growth is going to be anemic on average for years. Right now, the prospect is bleak for anything other than a particularly high unemployment rate and a weak jobs-creating machine," said Allen Sinai, president of Decision Economics Inc. He says he doubts that unemployment will dip below 7 percent anytime soon.

Many economists consider a jobless rate of 4 to 5 percent as reflecting a "full employment" economy, one in which nearly everyone who wants a job has one. After the 2001 recession the rate climbed to 5.8 percent in 2002 and peaked at 6.3 percent in 2003 before easing back to 4.6 percent for 2006 and 2007.

Will unemployment ever get back to such levels?

"I wouldn't say never. But I do think it's going to be a long time," said Bruce Bartlett, a former Treasury Department economist and the author of the book "The New American Economy: The Failure of Reaganomics and a New Way Forward."

"The linkage between growth in the economy and growth in jobs is not what it was. I don't know if it's permanently broken or temporarily broken. But clearly we are not seeing the sort of increase in employment that one would normally expect," said Bartlett.

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Jolie Rouge

23 states report higher unemployment in September
By Christopher S. Rugaber, Ap Economics Writer
43 mins ago

WASHINGTON – Unemployment rose in 23 states last month as the economy struggled to create jobs in the early stages of the recovery.

While layoffs have slowed, companies remain reluctant to hire. Forty-three states reported job losses in September, while only seven gained jobs, the Labor Department said Wednesday.

Some of the states that lost jobs still saw their unemployment rates decline, as discouraged workers gave up looking for work. People who are out of work but no longer looking for jobs aren't counted as officially unemployed.

That trend was evident nationwide in September, as nearly 600,000 people dropped out of the work force, the department reported earlier this month.

The U.S. jobless rate rose to 9.8 percent in September, a 26-year high, from 9.7 percent. Some economists estimate it would have topped 10 percent if there had been no change in the labor force.

There were some bright spots in Wednesday's report. The Midwest region, hit hard during the recession by job losses in manufacturing, saw its unemployment rate drop for the second straight month, to 9.8 percent from 10 percent in August. It was the only region where the unemployment rate declined.

The Midwest benefited from sharp drops in unemployment in Indiana and Ohio. Indiana's jobless rate fell to 9.6 percent, from 9.9 percent in August and 10.7 percent in June.

Indiana added 4,400 jobs, the most of any state, due to gains in the manufacturing and service sectors.

Ohio, meanwhile, saw its jobless rate drop to 10.1 percent, from 10.8 percent in August and 11.2 percent in July.

Still, Ohio lost about 6,000 jobs in September, and much of the improvement in its unemployment rate came from discouraged workers leaving the work force.

Nevada, Rhode Island and Florida last month posted their highest jobless rates on records dating to 1976, the department said. Fifteen states and Washington, D.C., reported unemployment rates of 10 percent or more.

Michigan reported the nation's highest unemployment rate at 15.3 percent. It was followed by Nevada at 13.3 percent, Rhode Island at 13 percent, California at 12.2 percent and South Carolina at 11.6 percent.

Real estate continues to bedevil states that enjoyed a housing boom. Florida's jobless rate rose to 11 percent from 10.8 percent in August, as the state lost nearly 13,000 construction jobs. California lost 39,300 jobs, including more than 14,000 in construction. Nevada lost 3,500 construction jobs, though it boosted employment in services.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091021/...N0YXRlc3JlcG8-

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Jolie Rouge

Gov't says stimulus saved or created 650,000 jobs
By Matt Apuzzo And Brett J. Blackledge, Associated Press Writers
1 hr 34 mins ago

WASHINGTON – About 650,000 jobs have been saved or created under President Barack Obama's economic stimulus plan, the White House said Friday, saying the president's goal of 3.5 million jobs by the end of next year is on track.

New job numbers from businesses, contractors, state and local governments, nonprofit groups and universities were scheduled to be released publicly later Friday. White House economic adviser Jared Bernstein said the figures will show that, when adding in jobs linked to $288 billion in tax cuts, the stimulus plan has created or saved more than 1 million jobs.

Government recovery plans — everything from the $787 billion stimulus to tax credits for buying new homes to government deals on new cars — are credited with helping the economy grow again after a record four straight losing quarters.

But the job market has yet to show signs of recovery, putting pressure on the White House to show that the stimulus was worth its hefty price tag. The economy has shed millions of jobs since Obama signed the stimulus in February, giving Republicans ammunition to say the government is spending too much for too little effect.

The White House says the report bolsters its case that the economy would have been far worse without the stimulus — a package of government spending, tax cuts, state aide and social programs.

Friday's data will have its limitations, since calculating "jobs saved" will always produce an inexact estimate and collecting data from so many sources is certain to produce errors. But the number released Friday represents the most accurate head count of stimulus jobs to date, one that is more precise than previous estimates based on White House economic formulas.

And it represents the most extensive effort ever by any administration to calculate the effect of a spending program in real time.

"It's a great example of the unprecedented transparency, where the American taxpayer can point and click and see their taxes creating jobs," Bernstein said.

The White House promised the data would be far more reliable than the first batch of numbers, on federal contracts, which the administration initially embraced, then branded a "test run" after thousands of errors were discovered.

Teachers are expected to represent the largest number of jobs in the report. With state budgets in crisis, federal aid helped governors avoid major cuts in education, which officials said spared hundreds of thousands of teachers from the unemployment line.

In Indiana, where officials reported saving 13,000 teaching jobs, Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels warned against putting too much stock in the job numbers.

"I personally wouldn't try to tell a taxpayer that this had any effect that I can see on the economy or let alone that there is some specific number of jobs attached to it," Daniels said earlier this month.

Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle, a Democrat, said Friday "there's just no doubt" that the federal aide spared 6,100 government jobs, including teachers, police officers and firefighters, in his state.

"There would have been dramatic layoffs," he said.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091030/...Z0c2F5c3N0aW0-

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Laissez les bon temps rouler! Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.** a 4 day work week & sex slaves ~ I say Tyt for PRESIDENT! Not to be taken internally, literally or seriously ....Suki ebaynni IS THAT BETTER ?

Jolie Rouge

You know it’s getting bad when CBS turns on you
Posted by: Sister Toldjah on October 30, 2009 at 1:56 pm

The Obama administration’s BS spin on “jobs created/saved” has gotten so bad that even Katie Couric has called them out on it. I’m savoring this “truth in mainstream (liberal) media journalism” moment. I know it won’t last long. But in the event that it did, I wonder how long it would take before the Obama admin started targeting CBS, too? Ed Morrissey is on the same page: http://hotair.com/archives/2009/10/3...mulus-numbers/

So when does CBS start getting the Fox treatment by Robert Gibbs and Valerie Jarrett? (via Instapundit http://pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/87570/ )

Come to think of it, considering how the quickly admin punished other normally loyal and devoted MSM outlets after they stood in solidarity with Fox News last week when the admin tried to shut Fox out of the press pool, I’d say CBS better start planning it’s next Obama puff piece – stat.

Wonder what the big topic is going to be on 60 Minutes this week? Another fawning MSM segment on Michelle Obama

http://sistertoldjah.com/archives/20...-turns-on-you/


Let’s talk about some more Obama incompetence and inept bailout legislation.

HAMP program Expert: Loan Mod Numbers Utter Fantasy By Julie Crenshaw at Newsmax.com Money section


CBS Says White House Is Fudging Stimulus Jobs Numbers
By Noel Sheppard
October 30, 2009 - 11:53 ET

When Katie Couric and the folks at CBS start doubting what the Administration says about how effective February's economic stimulus package was, you know President Obama is in trouble.

Consider that on Thursday's CBS "Evening News," Chip Reid began a segment with the following startling statement about a jobs report card to be released by the White House Friday:

Readers are advised to make sure youngsters are out of the room, for watching Katie and the Gang say the White House might be fudging numbers could be way too frightening for minors

Makes you wonder if White House communications director Anita Dunn is going to file a complaint with CBS.

After all, she didn't think it was right for Fox News's Chris Wallace to fact check the Adminstration.

Why should Katie and crew get to do it?



http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sh...s-hard-believe

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Laissez les bon temps rouler! Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.** a 4 day work week & sex slaves ~ I say Tyt for PRESIDENT! Not to be taken internally, literally or seriously ....Suki ebaynni IS THAT BETTER ?

Jolie Rouge

Geithner: Recovery could be 'a little choppy'
Sat Oct 31, 8:53 pm ET

WASHINGTON – Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner says the economic recovery "could be a little choppy" and it's going to take a while.

Geithner told NBC's "Meet the Press" that bringing back jobs and the confidence of investors will be the real test of recovery. He declined to say whether the recession is over, saying economists will figure that out years from now.

Recent encouraging news in the economy "shows that — when you act with force — you can stabilize a crisis like this," he said in the interview that will air Sunday.

"But this is going to be a different recovery than in the past because Americans are going to have to save more. A lot of damage was caused by this crisis. It's going to take some time for us to grow out of this.

"It could be a little choppy. It could be uneven. And it's going to take awhile."

He noted, however, that he's seeing encouraging signs.

An excerpt of the interview was released Saturday night.



http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091101/...ithner_economy

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Jolie Rouge

Obama: Private, public sectors must create jobs
By Ben Feller, Associated Press Writer
13 mins ago

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama said Monday the public and private sectors must find more ways to create jobs to continue the nation's climb out of an economic recession.

Obama said the economy has pulled back "from the brink" but still has a long way to go, especially in creating jobs. The president said job losses would continue for weeks and months to come and called for bold, innovative action by his administration, Congress and the private sector to create more good-paying jobs.

Obama made the remarks at the start of a White House meeting in the Roosevelt Room with economic advisers. The session was open to reporters and streamed live on the White House Web site.

He also said the U.S. must break out of a "debilitating gridlock on trade policy," by ending the false choice between a wide-open, free wheeling import policy or fearful, protectionist approach to trade. He called for a more balanced policy of letting the world know America wants to compete and trade — fairly — with anyone. He gave no specifics.

In opening remarks, Obama credited his stimulus package for recent upticks in economic numbers, including a significant boost in manufacturing that was reported on Monday.

But, he said, "The reason we're here today is because we just are not where we need to be yet. We've got a long way to go. We are still seeing production levels that are significantly below peak levels and most distressing is the fact that job growth continues to lag."


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091102/.../us_obama_jobs

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Jolie Rouge

Unemployment Rate Jumps to 10.2%;
AP Reports 'Economy Is Rebounding'
By P.J. Gladnick
November 6, 2009 - 09:43 ET

The October unemployment rate has just been released and it has jumped to double digits at 10.2%, the worst rate since 1983. Just a little over half a point higher would make this the worst recession since the Great Depression. So how is the Associated Press reporting the growing unemployment numbers? "The economy is rebounding." I kid you not.

This AP report by Christopher S. Rugaber was published earlier this morning before the official unemployment rate was released. Notice how AP tries to cushion the blow by speculating that it would probably just rise to 9.9% for October: http://www.theheraldbulletin.com/bre...310064458.html The AP couldn't wait a few hours before filing this embarrassing egg-on-the face unemployment report? Were they that anxious to promote fictitious happy news on the economic front? Most economists think the rate will "eventually" surpass 10 percent? "Eventually" lasted only a few hours after the report was filed with the immediate jump to 10.2 percent, not sometime in the vague future.

AP continues to laughably divorce itself from reality in the rest of the report:

There actually is one green shoot in the economy. The employment prospects at the Associated Press for Baghdad Bob have gotten much brighter.

Update: The original "happy face" AP unemployment rate report link at Yahoo! Finance has been replaced with this report reflecting the latest stats. You can run, AP, but you can't hide. Your original embarrassing report still exists on the Web. http://finance.yahoo.com/news/What-r...22944.html?x=0


http://newsbusters.org/blogs/p-j-gla...omy-rebounding

__________________
Laissez les bon temps rouler! Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.** a 4 day work week & sex slaves ~ I say Tyt for PRESIDENT! Not to be taken internally, literally or seriously ....Suki ebaynni IS THAT BETTER ?

Jolie Rouge

How can the jobless adapt to 10.2 percent unemployment rate?
By the Monitor's Editorial Board


As US unemployment has surged – the rate reached a 26-year high in October at 10.2 percent – so too has one solution to help bring it down: retraining in fields where jobs are available.

Worker mobility in learning new skills has become essential in a globally competitive economy, one in which new ideas are the job creators.

But not only workers but also schools need to adapt more quickly.

Last spring, for instance, Clackamas Community College near Portland, Ore., found a way to handle spiraling enrollment caused by a surge of students seeking new skills. It started "graveyard shift" welding classes from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m.

Talk about burning the midnight oil.

People seeking employable skills – especially workers who have discovered that a high school diploma isn't enough – are flocking to schools like Clackamas that offer practical degrees quickly.

With nearly 16 million unemployed in America after 22 months of the economy shedding jobs, the country has a strong incentive to narrow the yawning "skills gap." And with more people unemployed longer, there's more opportunity for retraining – although job seekers often need information, the means, and a confidence boost to help them do it.

Many of the jobs lost in the great recession may not come back in the recovery. Economists point to manufacturing, real estate, and finance as particularly vulnerable.

Yet many employers even now are having trouble finding qualified workers who are skilled in manual trades (think welding and plumbing), and certain types of technicians and engineers, according to Manpower Inc., the employee services firm.

And while Americans love to use technology, there aren't always enough people to design, install, repair, or maintain it. And the US will also need more nurturers – in classrooms and sickrooms.

Yet the educational system that traditionally meets these needs – community colleges and training centers – is strained to the breaking point by shrinking budgets at the state and local level. This demands creative solutions from government, businesses, and individuals.

The Obama administration plans to inject $12 billion over 10 years into community colleges, but that won't be enough. Businesses must step up, either supporting local schools or doing more specific employee training themselves.

Individuals must also accept more responsibility – scouring community services for sometimes hidden training opportunities or building their skills through Internet courses. Some of these courses are free, some require a fee. Individuals can start by simply Googling "training" in their city.

Who knows? They might become trainers themselves – a burgeoning field when more than 1 in 10 people seeking work can't find it.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20091106/cm_csm/eretraining

__________________
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Jolie Rouge

The Stimulus Jobs Inflation Map
November 16, 2009 07:15 PM

A few weeks ago, I said we needed a new metric for all the bogus jobs claimed by the Obama White House. I called it the “Stimulus Jobs Inflation Index.”

The Examiner does even better — creating a handy, interactive Stimulus Jobs Inflation Map. http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/ma...-Stimulus.html




http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?k...me=false&gid=0




http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?k...me=false&gid=0

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Jolie Rouge

Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Obama Web site claims stimulus jobs in non-existent places
By James Rosen | McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON — The federal Web site that tracks spending from the Obama administration's $787 billion economic stimulus program reports that the program has created thousands of jobs in congressional districts that don't exist.

According to http://www.recovery.gov, California has seven congressional districts more than the 53 it actually has, including a 99th. In South Carolina, the site reported Tuesday evening, $40.7 million in economic stimulus funds have gone to seven spurious congressional districts, including 00 and 25. South Carolina has six U.S. House districts.

"The inaccuracies on recovery.gov that have come to light are outrageous," said Rep. David Obey, the Wisconsin Democrat who chairs the House Appropriations Committee. "The administration owes itself, the Congress and every American a commitment to work night and day to correct the ludicrous mistakes."

Republican lawmakers were more scathing Tuesday, with some accusing the administration of a cover-up. No House Republicans and only three GOP senators voted for the stimulus bill, which President Barack Obama signed into law on Feb. 17.

"The government Web site charged with reporting waste, fraud and abuse is its very own worst offender," said Rep. Joe Wilson of South Carolina. "I know we have been asking this administration to show us the jobs, but this isn't what we had in mind."

"The attempts to cover up the dismal failure of the president's trillion-dollar stimulus have gone from comical to embarrassing," said South Carolina Republican Sen. Jim DeMint.

The White House didn't respond to repeated requests for comment.

Ed Pound, a spokesman for the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board, told ABC News that human error caused the mistakes.

"We report what the recipients submit to us," he said, according to ABC. "Some recipients clearly don't know what congressional district they live in, so they appear to be just throwing in any number."

Computer experts questioned that explanation, however, noting that many of the Web site's state links included a District 00, suggesting that there was a technical glitch in how the data was received.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/politics/story/79058.html

__________________
Laissez les bon temps rouler! Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.** a 4 day work week & sex slaves ~ I say Tyt for PRESIDENT! Not to be taken internally, literally or seriously ....Suki ebaynni IS THAT BETTER ?