The White House insists that the $787 billion stimulus has been a tremendous success. It also insist that its website, recovery.gov, is a "great success."
The White House looks ridiculous.
Massive problems with the data have been reported for weeks, but the Obama administration is dismissing them.
From The Hill:
White House officials on Tuesday dismissed criticism that its recovery act reporting efforts were riddled with inaccuracies, stressing its mistakes were "relatively few, and don't change the fundamental conclusions one can draw from the data."
A day after reporters discovered that the White House's stimulus hub, Recovery.gov, incorrectly calculated jobs created by federal funds in congressional districts that do not actually exist, White House adviser Ed DeSeve acknowledged the errors as "frustrating."
...Monday's news that the White House had to purge more than 60,000 jobs from stimulus reports because the numbers were suspect angered some lawmakers. But this morning's revelation that Recovery.gov reflected jobs and dollar amounts in congressional districts that did not exist made some, including House Appropriations Chairman David Obey (D-Wisc.), nearly apoplectic.
Consequently, DeSeve on Monday explained that errors are often more obvious as a result of transparency, not despite of it. He also attributed the recent string of lapses regarding congressional districts to simple human error, and he cautioned those errors in no way meant the White House was not making progress stimulating the economy.
"Critics – some well intentioned, some who just wanted to discredit the Recovery Act -- have had over two weeks to try to make hay with the data," he said. "But no criticism has come close to discrediting the larger and most important point: that the Recovery Act has helped save or create more than 1 million jobs across America and across various sectors of the economy."
This is nuts! It's insane.
Dave Obey, DEMOCRAT, is not buying his party's line.
From WAOW:
Congressman Dave Obey wants pervasive errors in official stimulus data fixed. The Wausau Democrat says that the inaccuracies on recovery.gov are “stupid mistakes” that undermine the government’s credibility.
...In an Appropriations Committee statement Obey says, “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.”
Wisconsin has several phantom districts listed on the recovery website including the 55th, 14th, 9th, 00, 10th and 39th. The funds received vary from $1,240,000 to $91,091.
Obey also called on the Transparency Board, which oversees the recovery act web site and data, to fix it. “Whether the numbers are good news or bad news, I want the honest numbers and I want them now,” Obey said.
It's impossible to fix the website.
If the numbers are tainted to begin with, nothing can be done to get "honest numbers."
The stimulus is a disaster. It's a complete failure, government incompetence at its worst.
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Video: Who’s Accountable When Stimulus Data is Erroneous?
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ABC News Exclusive: Obama Admin Slashed 60,000 Jobs From Recent Stimulus Report
Office of Management & Budget Document: 12 Stimulus Recipients Reported 'Unrealistic Job Data'
"Unrealistic"?
That's a very gentle way of putting it.
Some more appropriate terms come to mind to describe the job data, such as fabricated, false, deceptive, dishonest, BS.
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