More Jobs Saved Or Created Nonsense

On top of the bogus metric "jobs saved or created" reports from all over the country are finding that money has gone to congressional districts that don't even exist. According to the Recovery.gov website, which is supposed to track these things (and you would think knows how many districts there are in the House (435)). Yet, the website claims for Kansas 10 jobs created and saved in the 9th Congressional district, 9 jobs in the 8th District and 3 in the 6th district and 2 in the 14th. Kansas has four Congressional districts.

The same problems are reported in Arizona, where the 15th District was invented out of whole cloth. Arizona has only eight districts.

The list of questionable or nonexistent jobs keeps growing.

All the while, unemployment rates continue creeping up around the country and those states with the highest unemployment like Michigan have gotten little in the way of relief from the stimulus funds. There's been little to no private sector job creation:

The Free Press examination of more than 1,800 government reports of those who have received or expect to receive stimulus money found the biggest impact was spurring or protecting public-sector or summer jobs — not private-sector jobs. Michigan has the nation’s worst unemployment rate.

The spokesmen for the Recovery.gov effort claim that it was human error to make such mistakes. No kidding.

The fundamental problem with the website is that we're discussing a bogus metric that is impossible to define, and implausible on its face. Any job that hasn't been eliminated can be construed as a job saved according to the Obama Administration, and all too many jobs being claimed under the Obama Administration headline as the stimulus working its magic are jobs that would never be cut, jobs that don't even exist, or jobs who are getting raises. One estimate suggests that there were 75,000 phantom jobs included in the Administration press releases touting the stimulus.

(HT: NJDhockeyfan)

How else do you think the government is able to build those arks we saw in the trailers for the movie 2012? You don't think it really costs $400 for a toilet seat do you? This is government waste writ large. If the government can't keep track of its payments and outlays, how can we trust it to keep track of monies for health care or any other operation?

Moreover, the stimulus was a way for states to avoid having to make tough decisions to reduce spending because of the downturn in the economy. It enabled states to continue profligate spending and not face voter wrath for spending money that the states don't have. It enabled governors, like NJ Gov. Jon Corzine to avoid making serious cuts to the state workforce at a time when he needed to get all the votes he could in his failed reelection campaign. The money glosses over the real problems around the country with state spending that doesn't come close to matching revenues.

The stimulus is a way to deny responsibility and ignore fiscal responsibility. Future generations of Americans will be saddled with the crushing debt incurred to fund this mess.

UPDATE:
New Jersey apparently suffers from the same problems as many other states. Money is listed as going to districts that simply don't exist. The state has 13 districts, and yet the 40th district gets $2 million? The 00 district gets $7 million?

Who does the fact checking for the Recovery.gov website when they're doing data entry to insure that the figures reflect Congressional districts? Where is this money being spent?