Snow Jobs, Stimulus Jobs, What's the Difference?

An exclusive report from ABC News Monday, exposed that the Obama administration, through the Office of Management and Budget, has "slashed" 60,000 jobs (10%) from the 600,000 jobs supposedly created by the Obama Stimulus Plan. From the description, "jobs" were being "saved or created" literally out of thin air, by direct instructions of the administration.

Over the past days, reports had been surfacing of outlandish claims of job creation, such as one from Taladega County in Alabama, which claimed that 5,000 jobs were "saved or created" after receiving only $42,000 in Stimulus money! The Southwest Georgia Community Action Council reported 935 jobs saved, when they only employ 508 people. The Boston Globe reported that Bridgewater State College in Massachusetts claimed to have created 160 work-study jobs, with only $77,000 in funds. USA Today reported that a Texas roofing contract "saved" 450 jobs with $26,000 cash, when it only employed 6 people, and on it went.

Associated Press confirmed last week that some (if not most) of this over-reporting was not accidental. After interviewing some of the people at the Administration for Children and Families at the Health and Human Services Department, they discovered that, of 14,506 jobs "saved" in the Head Start program, 9,300 jobs claimed as "saved," were people who had merely received a raise, paid for with federal stimulus cash. In fact, Head Start directors were told, by the administration, to multiply their existing employees by "the percentage pay raise they received," and report that number as jobs saved. Thus in the case of the Southwest Georgia Community Action Council, their claim of 935 jobs saved was "calculated" exactly according to instructions!

Other over-reporting was concentrated in education-related funding, for possibly the same reasons. A Bridgewater College spokesman "corrected" its reported number as a "mistake" and said that the number was actually "almost nothing," according to the Globe.

All this was too much for even some Democrats. Rep David Obey (WI) blasted the mistakes as "outrageous" and "ludicrous." Rep. Darrell Issa, ranking Republican on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, has sent a letter to Earl Devaney, chairman of the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board, questioning whether he could certify the figures posted on the Recovery.gov website. Devaney will have a chance to defend himself Thursday, when he appears before the Committee.