Stimulus Package doubles size of Congress
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The political appeal of the $787 billion stimulus package was that it allowed the Obama Administration to spread the money across all 435 Congressional Districts in an attempt to win votes from politicians eager to bring home the bacon in rough economic times. But reports by the Obama Administration’s Recovery.gov database show that the money wasn’t limited to those 435 districts. It also went to 440 Congressional Districts that don’t exist.
Lead Investigator Grant Bosse
Reporter Michael Noyes of the Montana Policy Institute investigated how his state could have received funding in 13 separate Congressional districts, when it has only one Representative.
Ed Pound, director of communications for the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board, tells the Montana Policy Institute that his organization posts whatever information is reported by stimulus grant recipients, and doesn’t check to make sure it’s actually true.
“Our job is data integrity, not data quality,” he said.
The Recovery.Gov website was set up in February with a budget of $84 million.
Overall, Bill McMorris of the Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity calculates that $6.4 billion of the stimulus package has been distributed to 440 phantom Congressional Districts, which the Administration claims created over 28,000 jobs at a cost of $224,500 each.
The news of the mythical Congressional Districts comes on the heels of an admission by the Obama Administration that 60,000 jobs had to be cut from its latest stimulus report after finding faulty data from a dozen stimulus recipients.
Reported problems with the stimulus jobs data are so widespread that the Washington Examiner’s David Freddoso and Mark Hemingway have published an interactive map of bogus jobs created or saved by the stimulus.
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Tags: Stimulus
15 Comments For This Post So Far
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$6.4 Billion Stimulus Goes to Phantom Districts
[...] just under 30,000 jobs in these phantom congressional districts. The web site operates on an $84 million budget and is tasked with monitoring the distribution of the $787 billion stimulus package passed by [...]
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$6.4 Billion Stimulus Goes to Phantom Districts
[...] in these phantom congressional districts–almost $225,000 per job. The web site operates on an $84 million budget and is tasked with monitoring the distribution of the $787 billion stimulus package passed by [...]
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Creating Fake Congressional Districts : Conservative Compendium
[...] in these phantom congressional districts–almost $225,000 per job. The web site operates on an $84 million budget and is tasked with monitoring the distribution of the $787 billion stimulus package passed by [...]
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Stimulating! Ten New Congressional Districts in Michigan! | For Freedom's Sake
[...] to Watchdog.org, the federal recovery website operates on an $84 million budget. One would think such hefty price tag would ensure more accurate reporting. Instead, it says nearly [...]
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More than Six Million Dollars going to Phanton Districts Nationwide
[...] of the information can be found on http://www.recovery.gov, a website that operates on an $84 million budget. New Mexico Watchdog broke the story yesterday after noticing money had been distributed to ten [...]
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Hot Air » Blog Archive » $6.4 billion in Porkulus money spent in phantom districts?
[...] in these phantom congressional districts–almost $225,000 per job. The web site operates on an $84 million budget and is tasked with monitoring the distribution of the $787 billion stimulus package passed by [...]
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$6.4 Billion Stimulus Goes to Phantom Districts
[...] McMorris, who I quoted in this morning story on the 440 phantom Congressional Districts that received funding under the stimulus. The site’s monitors, however, are not too savvy about [...]
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Stimulus Package Creates Imaginary Jobs, Destroys Jobs in the Real World | OpenMarket.org
[...] distributed to 440 congressional districts that do not exist. . . . The web site operates on an $84 million budget and is tasked with monitoring the distribution of the $787 billion stimulus package passed by [...]
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Bogus jobs, bogus statistics, real money
[...] these [440] phantom congressional districts–almost $225,000 per job. The web site operates on an $84 million budget and is tasked with monitoring the distribution of the $787 billion stimulus package passed by [...]
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Will Transparency Disappear? | For Freedom's Sake
[...] distributed to 440 congressional districts that do not exist. . . . The web site operates on an $84 million budget and is tasked with monitoring the distribution of the $787 billion stimulus package passed by [...]
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Reporter Grant Bosse launches phantom campaign for Congress
[...] (CONCORD) Flanked by thousands of non-existent supporters, reporter Grant Bosse today announced his candidacy for New Hampshire’s 00 Congressional District. The new district, which Bosse discovered in a story on New Hampshire Watchdog on Monday, is one of 440 Districts nationwide created by errors in the federal government’s Recovery.org database. [...]
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This Just In: Obama Lost 824,000 More Jobs Than Previously Reported « Start Thinking Right
[...] that those bogus job numbers were reported as having been “created or saved” in phony congressional districts and in phony zip code regions, well, let’s just say that I have every reason to believe that [...]
12:13 pm on November 17th, 2009
Can you offer any citation for the 84M figure for the website? I think that is the cost for the whole oversight and data gather operation, not for the development and operation of the site.
12:30 pm on November 17th, 2009
Michael,
I believe you are correct. The organization has an $84 million budget, but the organization’s sole responsibility is Recovery.gov.
Grant
4:13 pm on April 19th, 2010
Predatory Lending is a major contributor to the economic turmoil we are currently experiencing.
Here is an example of what I am talking about:
Scott Veerkamp / Predatory Lending (Franklin Township School Board Member.)
Please review this information from U.S. Senator Jeff Merkley regarding deceptive lending practices:
“Steering payments were made to brokers who enticed unsuspecting homeowners into deceptive and expensive mortgages. These secret bonus payments, often called Yield Spread Premiums, turned home mortgages into a SCAM.”
The Center for Responsible Lending says YSP “steals equity from struggling families.”
1. Scott collected nearly $10,000 on two separate mortgages using YSP and junk fees. 2. This is an average of $5,000 per loan. 3. The median value of the properties was $135,000. 4. Clearly, this type of lending represents a major ripoff for consumers.
http://merkley.senate.gov/newsroom/press/release/?id=A09C6A80-537A-4EB1-83C5-31925F046B6F