Stimulus Package – Ready for Package 2?

Well Well Well – It looks like the Obama Administration is guilty of the same fuzzy math that they accused the Bush Administration of committing … glass houses …. Glass houses

New reports are looking at where those jobs created are coming from – in fact they are finding that there are thousands of jobs that were 'created' in congressional districts around the US & her protectorates ….

Its just too bad that those districts don't actually exist!

Okay here we go with just a few (check out the full listing and peruse thru the info for your state, you will be embarrassed by what your politicians are letting get by)

State Districts Actual #
_____claimed of districts

AZ ___ 86 __-__8
CT ___ 86 __-__5
IA __-_ 31 ____ 5
OK ___ 57 ____ 5
US VI _ 99 ____ 1
PR ___ 99 ____ 1

In fact Puerto Rico claimed it saved/created 17, 544 jobs in those 6 districts (including a PR district, and the largest district number being 99) … they have listed the "98 congressional district", "99 congressional district", and two that didn't even have numbers! And yet not one person who processed the paperwork for these 'districts' to get the money actually sat down to check to make sure they were real ….

Now its not just Fox News that is noticing this … the Boston Globe reported that job creations were exaggerated in MA … 26,000 jobs in CA claimed to be saved, it has been discovered were never threatened to begin with – oops … GA headstart gave employees a raise and then claimed that they 'created' jobs …

Now aren't you glad they are talking about doing yet another stimulus plan?

So how much was actually done in the real congressional districts?
(links are to the individual states breakdown by Congressional Districts, and are different from those above)

AZ 12,227.4 (now that is just in the 8 real districts and the majority [10,034.8] coming from the 1st district which is the majority of Arizona) … by the looks of the numbers, these may have been mostly PT jobs saved/created. And in the "86th district" there where no jobs created or saved, but it received $34,412,126 – WHAT? The "00 district" created 8 jobs for about $600,000 … hmmm, wonder how their GPS got them there ….

CT 7150.6 jobs(the majority of them [6,155.5] were in the 1st district as well) … they also have a "00 district" which created a whopping 0.1 jobs at a cost of $2,045,701. But not to be outdone … the "9th district" used $18,301,170 to create 0 jobs. It was awarded 48 government contracts which will produce a total of 28 jobs with its $48million- what? How does this work? 28 jobs isn't even a full company in most cases … unless they are very small companies which only have a couple of workers – but that's not likely to happen.

IA 5284.2 (the majority in the 3rd district [3,299.2] but the majority of the $ went to the 4th district and the 1,300 jobs there) …. They also have a "00 district" which had a single job get $100,000+ … of course they also have a '19th district' which made 0 jobs for over $4Million.

OK 8732 (the majority in the 5th district where $1/4Billion created/saved +6,500 jobs) … they also have a "00 district" who used $500,000 for a single job!! The "51st district" used over $10Million to create NOTHING!

US VI
72.2 at a whopping $68,318,049 …. That is over $946,000 a job – NO WAY! OMGs – I'm moving to the Virgin Islands if you can get that much – although I'd rather work in "district 00" where they have a single job that earned over $16MILLION. This includes 17 government contracts making a total of 82 jobs for a total price of almost $14Million – ouch!

PR 53.3 jobs were created in the only real district, at a cost of nearly $44Million … in fact it comes out to $822, 625.44 a job! But don't worry – the district that was given the most money was "District 00" which received $1,832,656,696 for 17,141.5 jobs … I wonder who lives in district 00? What is worse is that the majority of these funds have been given as GRANTS – that means they don't have to pay the nation back … yep, they get to put the money goodness knows where, but the US gov can't really go back and say "give it back" either.

Now – I have a feeling that the "00 district" might be a designation given to projects/jobs which cross regular district lines – such as construction, Dept. of Ed., state DoTs, etc … but still you have to wonder about US VI & PR which only have one district – they couldn't possibly have projects that cross district lines, they don't HAVE district lines.

Not to leave my state out, MN, got $2.4Billion in grants … 173 government contracts at $157.6Million (772 jobs – big f'ing wow, the majority of which are Union jobs) … they've complete 123 projects so far, 144 are more than 50% complete, 497 are less than 50% complete (probably road construction if I know MNDoT) … our two biggest money eaters? Dept of Transportation (MNDoT) and the Regents of the UofM – what do they need money for? To build a new stadium? How about lowering the cost of an education for EVERYONE????? My son will be spending in a quarter for his first semester at the U of M what I was charged, 20 yrs ago, for an entire year!

I was kind of happy to see the at the city of Ladysmith, WI got over a $1million … we drove thru there before a devastating tornado (F3) tried to kill the town … it touched down just before the town, intensified, and then lifted off just outside the city limits. In fact the area where they figured it intensified to an F3 was very near where we had stalled with the camper (air-lock in the engine somewhere) … $20 million of damage in a small town (only 8000 pop, I think) is like $1billion in the big city – maybe more … they really needed this money.

You know it's the same thing with communities in Puerto Rico – I had a Spanish teacher in college from Puerto Rico who said the worst ghetto in NY or Chicago are better than some of the neighborhoods in PR … I have no doubt that if the money goes where it should instead of into graft and politicians pockets it could do lots of good.