• erinje

  +1

  SUGGESTION FOR $300,000,000 DOLLARS..TO US MORTALS THAT IS MILLIONS....BUT, LET'S FACE IT IF THE CONGRESS CAN SO EASILY PASS A BILL FOR $750 BILLION DOLLARS, PLEASE, SOMEONE EXPLAIN TO ME WHY EACH PERSON IN THE UNITED STATES SHOULDN'T GET A $1,000,000 EACH.(LET'S EVEN INCLUDE THE PEOPLE IN CONGRESS WHO HAVEN'T PAID TAXES FOR YEARS.. IF PRESIDENT OBAMA GAVE EACH ONE OF US THAT MILLION, HE WOULD STILL HAVE PLENTY FOR HIS OTHER PROJECTS AND HELP US BRING THE ECONOMY AROUND. IF NOT, A MILLION, THEN GIVE US AT LEAST $500,000 EACH. (THIS CALCULATION BASED ON THE POPULATION OF THE UNITED STATES). SINCERELY: grannyonslots@yahoo.com

  Posted 2/20/2009 respond (flag)

Stimulus Bill Oversight Crew Includes You, the Public
TPM Election Central — ... Contracts and data on where the stimulusmoney is heading will be posted online (the hypothetical URL "recovery.gov" was mentioned). But the best part of all: Any member of the public who has concerns with a particular element of the spending disbursement can post their questions for the oversight board to investigate. ...

Daily Digest: Fighting for a See-Through Stimulus
techPresident — Recovery.gov: Washington is going crazy over snappy domain names. First there was Change.gov, and now this. "Acknowledging concerns about potential government waste," reads a draft of the multi-billion-dollar stimulus package currently being hashed out on Capitol Hill, "Congress is creating a Web site -- http://www.recovery.gov -- to allow the public to track stimulus spending and file complaints." What with Office and Management and Budget nominee Peter Orszag rhapsodizing about his vision of an "OMB ...

Obama: Bad situation could get worse
The Swamp — by Mark Silva President Barack Obama, confronting what he calls "an unprecedented crisis that calls for unprecedented action,'' held out hope today that he will be able to sign within a month a massive economic stimulus plan promising to create or save three to four million jobs in the next few years. Acknowledging public doubts about "the size and scale of this recovery plan'' which is likely to exceed $800 billion in new spending if the new president wins his way with Congress, Obama also promised an unprecedented new commitment to "root out waste'' in government to ensure the money ...

President Obama’s First Weekly Address
Oliver Willis — President Obama explains that Recovery.gov will provide transparency when the American Recovery & Reinvestment Act passes. ...

Obama: Um, I know some of you are skeptical about spending a trillion dollars
Hot Air » Top Picks — ... plus The One’s own insistence on accountability, starting with the new Recovery.gov website, to push those numbers even higher. Anything missing here, though? Any crucial pieces of information politely omitted lest they jeopardize the bill — besides, I mean, the fact that it’s ...

TPMDC Saturday Roundup
TPM Election Central — ... In his first Presidential YouTube Address as the sitting chief executive, Barack Obama promote his stimulus plan, announcing that citizens will be able to hold the government accountable by monitoring the spending at a new Web site called Recovery.gov: ...

Bookmark it: Recovery.Gov
The Moderate Voice — Towards the close of his first weekly address, President Obama promises: We’ll launch an unprecedented effort to root out waste, inefficiency, and unnecessary spending in our government, and every American will be able to see how and where we spend taxpayer dollars by going to a new website called recovery.gov. More transparency via the web. For now the site is only the message pictured above.

Maegan Carberry and Elizabeth Blackney: REAL 100 Days: Preserve Bipartisanship With Issue-Oriented, New Media Focus
Politics on HuffingtonPost.com — We created The REAL 100 Days project as a bipartisan attempt to push ourselves beyond the boundaries of political parties as the new administration kicks off, and we'd love you to join our conversation. How do you think the media has covered Obama's first days in office? In what areas do you think Republicans and Democrats can work together? Know of a new blogger or civic group people should check out? Leave us a comment here or on our sites (www.maegancarberry.com and www.medializzy.com), call in to to our radio shows (Wilshire & Washington and The Media Lizzy Show), or contribute ...

Obama Touted Website is Lame
TPM Election Central — ... In his remarks earlier this morning about his stimulus plan, Obama touted Recovery.gov as a website where Americans "will be able to see how and where we spend taxpayer dollars." Actually the site is empty pending the passage of the bill. Basically, it's a placeholder for after the bill is passed. Shouldn't there be something in there about the competing proposals? The options? Etc. It seems kind of lame for such a techno-savvy White House. Besides after the bill is passed how quickly are they really going to be able to update how Topeka spends it's sewer money? ...

Daily Digest: Right and 'Net Getting Over First Decade Jitters
techPresident — ... The new American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, a.k.a. the $825 billionish stimulus package, seems eager to provide citizens with a simple view of where that money is being spent, via Recovery.gov. But what it also needs to do, writes CNET's Chris Soghoian, is to ...

Just a bit of complaining…
Comments from Left Field — ... President Obama has promised to make government more open, a task which shouldn’t be too difficult in the computer age where information can be digitized, indexed, and searched with querying assistants like Google.  So for the bailout, Obama has launch “Recovery.gov” for government openness on how the bailout money is spent. ...

Daily Digest: Forget Sod. Will Obama's Bill Stimulate the Grassroots?
techPresident — ... Included in the House version of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act is a provision that establishes Recovery.gov as a hub for oversight on where those many billions get spent. The Sunlight Foundation's John Wonderlich has a wonderful post making a critical point: in the minds of many, ...

Daily Digest: On Split CTOs, Search Strategies, and Stickiness
techPresident — ... . The concern is that the investment won't do much to stimulate the economy in the near term, and that with so huge a sum suddenly hitting the space, some of the money will go to the selfsame Internet providers who've not wired parts of America thus far. What might be in order: a Recovery.gov-type hub dedicated solely to tracking how the broadband stimulus plays out. ...

Opposition to “Stimulus” Boosts GOP’s Fortunes
GayPatriot — ... Not just that, Obama sounded like a Republican.  Take a gander at this web-page, where the Administration promises to root out waste and unnecessary spending, things Republicans are supposed to be doing.  But, note that this page doesn’t provide the details of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (i.e., the “stimulus”).  ...

Daily Digest: McCain Forwards, Dean in Demand, and Oversight Gets Lost in the Sausage
techPresident — ... , reports the Sunlight Foundation's John Wonderlich.* (Think GSA can get a refund?) To be sure, transparency provisions remain, but language specifying that particular domain name is missing -- perhaps a victim of government-y web practice of domain names not appearing to be too sloganish. Is it time to start worrying? Not quite yet, counsels Wonderlich. The Senate, he writes, might be cooking up its own, and even better, web-powered oversight plans. In the interest of distributing eggs to multiple baskets, check out Ars Technica's ...

Christina Bellantoni: Kaine asks Obama-ites to advocate for stimulus
Politics on HuffingtonPost.com — First published at WashingtonTimes.com The newly revamped campaign arm for President Obama, Organizing for America, will bank more than 3,300 house parties this weekend as Obama intensifies his political push for the economic stimulus package. I've obtained a copy of the email sent to the folks hosting parties across the country, along with a video from new Democratic National Committee chairman, Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine. "Don't forget to gather stories and questions from your guests -- they will be featured on BarackObama.com to tell the story of the economic crisis, ...

Selling the Stimulus in Elkhart, Ind.
Political Punch — ... "More people will lose their homes and their health care. And our nation will sink into a crisis that, at some point, we may be unable to reverse." The president is trying to push Congress to pass his economic stimulus plan, and today he warned that, "Endless delay or paralysis in Washington in the face of this crisis will bring only deepening disaster." The president told the crowd that once passed, the money would be released "quickly and wisely." He touted his administration's recovery.gov website, which will give people the ability to track stimulus spending. ...

Crowdsourcing as Political Currency
techPresident — ... to the notion in his framing of his economic stimulus package -- particularly in his promotion of the promised Recovery.gov oversight site. Well, it seems like someone else has been reading James Surowiecki. Add New York's Mark Green, running for a second, non-contiguous term as public advocate, to the list of politicians who see some currency in Internet-driven participatory politics. Green in ...

Treasury Sec Announces FinancialStability.gov
techPresident — In his press conference this morning, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner announced the creation of a new website to track the evolution of the new "Financial Stability Plan." Geithner: Our work begins with a new framework of oversight and governance of all aspects of our Financial Stability Plan. The American people will be able to see where their tax dollars are going and the return on their government’s investment, they will be able to see whether the conditions placed on banks and institutions are being met and enforced, they will be able to see ...

Thoughts on the Stimulus Deal
Swampland — Okay, so the deal is done and the votes are all but counted. We have ourselves a stimulus plan. And while Obama got what he wanted when he wanted (who secretly replaced the congressional Democratic leaders with people who get things done early??), he didn't get it in the ...

Bernstein's Got a Blog
techPresident — Another one, that is. Vice President Joe Biden's economist-in-chief Jared Bernstein announced in a post on the White House blog that he's got his own blog in the works: the "Middle Class Task Force Blog," housed at the new AStrongMiddleClass.gov. Bernstein's site joins Recovery.gov and FinancialStability.gov on the growing list of stand-alone micro-sites the domain-happy administration is launching. The new URL, though, simply redirects to a directory on the whitehouse.gov domain, and the blog is, for now, a handful of middle-classy ...

Randall Amster: Obama's Economic Paradox: Can You Have "Bailout" and "Stimulus" at the Same Time?
Politics on HuffingtonPost.com — By now the next phase of the "stimulus-bailout" plan is ready to be implemented. This version totals around $800 billion, plus interest that brings it to over a trillion dollars. Republicans stand aghast in near-unison, lambasting the plan variously as "closet socialism," "larded with pork," and insufficiently stimulative (arguing in essence that "it could take a few years for any benefits to materialize"). President Obama and the Democrats argue (a la George W. Bush, ironically) that the package is necessary to avoid economic collapse. And thus off we go, once again, through the ...

Christina Bellantoni: Recovery.gov goes live
Politics on HuffingtonPost.com — First published at WashingtonTimes.com The White House went live a short while ago with Recovery.gov, which President Obama has been touting for weeks as an online tool to track how the $787 billion stimulus plan will be spent. Obama is signing the bill today in Denver, and the site went up with a basic framework sometime this morning. Recovery.gov asks visitors to "share your recovery story" and "tell us how the Recovery Act is affecting you. What's working? What isn't? We want to hear from you." An administration official told ...

Recovery.Gov: White House Website To Track Stimulus Goes Live
The Huffington Post | Full News Feed — The Obama White House has officially launched its stimulus-tracking website, recovery.gov, giving the public a new-media portal through which to follow the progress of the legislation and, more broadly, the economy. "Recovery.gov is a website that lets you, the taxpayer, figure out where the money from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act is going," reads the site. "There are going to be a few different ways to search for information. The money is being distributed by Federal agencies, and soon you'll be able to see where it's going -- to which states, to which ...

Recovery.Gov: White House Website To Track Stimulus Goes Live
Politics on HuffingtonPost.com — The Obama White House has officially launched its stimulus-tracking website, recovery.gov, giving the public a new-media portal through which to follow the progress of the legislation and, more broadly, the economy. "Recovery.gov is a website that lets you, the taxpayer, figure out where the money from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act is going," reads the site. "There are going to be a few different ways to search for information. The money is being distributed by Federal agencies, and soon you'll be able to see where it's going -- to which states, to which ...

Recovery.gov
Taegan Goddard's Political Wire — The Obama administration set up a web site to show how the economic stimulus money is spent, state-by-state.

Obama's Misleading Spendulus Website
Ace of Spades HQ — Obama's Misleading Spendulus Website When you don't have any idea what to do next, stick with what you know. Obama knows how to campaign, so he's off to Denver to sign the spendulus ...

American Recovery and Reinvestment Act: Stuff for Oregon
BlueOregon — Just a little while ago, President Obama signed the economic stimulus/jobs bill known as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. As part of the implementation of this new spending package, the White House has unveiled a new website called recovery.org. The site is billed as a place for the American public to go in order to track where these funds are going. Along with the roll out for the website, the White House also provided fact sheets outlining what they believe will be the job growth under this legislation. It's broken down by state and by congressional ...

Open Gov’t
Oliver Willis — Recovery.go is live.

Recovery.gov Open For Business
News — Recovery.gov Open For Business The Obama administration launched Recovery.gov today - it's website to track where the money from the economic stimulus package is going. "Recovery.gov is a website that lets you, the taxpayer, figure out where the money from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act is going," the website states. "There are going to be a few different ways to search for information. The money is being distributed by Federal agencies, and soon you'll be able to see where it's going — to which states, to which congressional districts, even to which Federal contractors. As soon as we ...

What's in the New Recovery.Gov (And What's Missing)
techPresident — Recovery.gov just launched. And that, of course, calls for an insta-reaction to what's on the as-released federal stimulus oversight site and what's not there, yet. What's There: Graceful Timeline of the "Recovery" Process. It's an elegant, scrollable look at the so-far brief history of the stimulus, and simple way to make a massive overhaul of American society appear eminently ordered. Milestones to lookout for are already marked, like March 3 -- the date that federal agencies are required to start reporting how they're spending ...

Video: Ruinous stimulus bill becomes ruinous stimulus law
Hot Air » Top Picks — Video: Ruinous stimulus bill becomes ruinous stimulus law posted at 4:35 pm on February 17, 2009 by Allahpundit Send to a Friend | Share on Facebook | printer-friendly Nothing too exciting, but moments in American history as glorious as this deserve to be shared. Note his reminder halfway through the first clip that this is just the first bite of the crap sandwich we’ll have to ingest. He’s not kidding , people. Ahead of Obama’s arrival in Colorado, the White House went live with a Web site, www.recovery.gov, that will allow people to track where the money is being spent. The ...

Sunlight
The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan — After the rushed and largely opaque final passage of the stimulus, this is a glimmer of the transparency Obama promised.

Signing the Stimulus
Political Punch — Previous | Main Signing the Stimulus February 17, 2009 5:56 PM President Barack Obama signed the $787 billion, 1,071 page, "American Recovery and Reinvestment Act" today, capping a whirlwind month-long effort to pass an economic plan the president says is the “most sweeping economic recovery package in our history.” “What makes this recovery plan so important is not just that it will create or save three and a half million jobs over the next two years,” Obama told an audience of 300 elected officials and members of the ‘green energy’ community in Denver, Colo. “It’s that we are putting Americans ...

Recovery.gov
Seeing the Forest — Recovery.gov -- by Dave Johnson The Obama administration has put up a new website, Recovery.gov , to help people track how the recovery/stimulus money is spent. From the site: Recovery.gov is a website that lets you, the taxpayer, figure out where the money from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act is going. There are going to be a few different ways to search for information. The money is being distributed by Federal agencies, and soon you'll be able to see where it's going -- to which states, to which congressional districts, even to which Federal contractors. As soon as we are able to, ...

The “Tax Cuts” In Obama’s “Stimulus” Spending Spree Have A Big, Fat Asterisk Next To Them
Say Anything — I was looking over Obama’s breakdown of the “stimulus” spending spree he just signed into law at Recovery.org, and noted with interest that the breakdown of the spending had tax relief (with an asterisk next to it) as the biggest chunk: Now, I know that Obama’s stimulus was more spending than tax relief so I clicked on the “learn more” link and was presented with a bunch of different-sized floating balls intended to represent the various aspects of the stimulus, and then this footnote in fine print explaining the ...

Recovery.gov Launches
Daily Kos — Today marks the launch of the new White House website, Recovery.gov, the one stop shop designed to keep the public informed and up to date on the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act: As the centerpiece of the President’s commitment to transparency and accountability, Recovery.gov will feature information on how the Act is working, tools to help you hold the government accountable, and up-to-date data on the expenditure of funds. The site will include information about Federal grant awards and contracts as well as formula grant allocations. Federal agencies will ...

Follow The Money
Hoffmania! — Really. You can. The White House launches Recovery.gov so you can see how the stim package is spent. Let's go out on a limb: Republicans will whine about it somehow.

Day 28: Launches recovery.org
What is Obama doing? — In an effort to show the taxpayers where their money is going in the recovery efforts, and surely to win more support for the effort as well, recovery.org has been launched. Taxpayers will be able to see in detail how the money is spent, on which projects in which states, even which contractors are awarded contracts.  It is also a part of the transparency and accountability initiative, the increased visibility of where and how money is spent lessens the risk of the fraud and waste that many associate with large government projects.

Recovery.gov Launched
The Moderate Voice — Recovery.gov, the site the Obama administration promised would track the newly signed American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 expenditures, went live just after the bill was signed into law. Ars Technica: Thus far, of course, there’s not much to watch—aside from the aforementioned video—since funds have yet to be assigned to specific projects. A chart on the front page breaks down the broad spending categories into which federal dollars will flow, while a timeline gives the ...

Why the White House's Embrace of Drupal Matters
techPresident — Drupal developers are abuzz with the realization that the White House's new Recovery.gov site was built using the free and open-source content management platform Drupal. Pre-Recovery.gov, the perhaps highest-profile use of Drupal had been the Onion website. But that's not the only reason that Drupal fans are excited. I asked two CMS expert friends to help me understand the situation, and here are a few of the reasons they gave for why the White House's embrace of Drupal is momentous: First off is the very fact that with the move the White House is offering ...

Link of the day.
Upper Left — recovery.gov

Tracking Stimulus Spending
Weekly Standard Blog — The AP reports that "Republicans are preparing to pounce on any wasteful spending" in the stimulus package. House Republicans are setting up "a stimulus-watch program" that will allow watchdog groups and private citizens to report findings as contractors and agencies start spending billions of dollars on roads, schools, renewable energy projects and other initiatives, said House Republican Whip Eric Cantor. "We'll be taking a look in detail" and "really providing accountability and transparency," Cantor said in an interview Wednesday. House Minority Leader John ...

Orszag Lays Out In-House Asks on Open Stimulus
techPresident — New incoming Office of Management and Budget director Peter Orszag gave every department and agency formal notice on what it needs to do to stay on the good side of Recovery.gov, in the form of a 60-page all-agency memo numbered M-09-10. Recovery.gov might be groundbreaking from the cheap seats, but much of the memo will be familiar reading to its intended audience. In many ways -- from reporting requirements and even data formats demanded -- what Orszag's asking of agencies on Recovery.gov mimics what they're already doing for the federal contracts portal USAspending.gov. ...

Recovery.gov: Transparency and Expectations
Congress Blog — The launch of Recovery.gov as an accountability tool for the public exhibits the spirit of President Obama’s promise to use the Internet to connect citizens with vital government information, particularly in the case of the $787 billion stimulus bill. What must be noted first is that Recovery.gov marks a crucial moment in the government’s use of the Web to provide transparency and accountability. As the Sunlight Foundation’s John Wonderlich wrote, “The Internet has been recognized as having a central – even fundamental – role in enabling oversight and public access.” Without this public ...

The Sunlight Foundation: Recovery.gov: Transparency and Expectations
Politics on HuffingtonPost.com — The launch of Recovery.gov as an accountability tool for the public exhibits the spirit of President Obama's promise to use the Internet to connect citizens with vital government information, particularly in the case of the $787 billion stimulus bill. What must be noted first is that Recovery.gov marks a crucial moment in the government's use of the Web to provide transparency and accountability. As the Sunlight Foundation's John Wonderlich wrote, "The Internet has been recognized as having a central - even fundamental - role in enabling oversight and public access." Without ...

Theresa L. Burriss: Appalachia & Clean Coal
Feministing — There's been lots of talk about clean coal these days -- have you seen any of the industry's commercials? And coal is found in an area of the country that isn't talked about much on a national scale -- the Appalachian Mountains. Not much since Robert F. Kennedy visited the region back in the day. His son continues to speak out about it. Ashley Judd a long with many folks in her home state of Kentucky have been doing a lot of activism around mining and the disparities in the Appalachian Mountains there, and has recently spoke out about a piece Diana Sawyer aired ...

Obama to Name 'Gumshoe' to Keep Stimulus Honest
Political Punch — Previous | Main Obama to Name 'Gumshoe' to Keep Stimulus Honest February 22, 2009 5:45 PM An Obama administration official tells ABC News that during his remarks at the governors event Monday morning, President Obama will announce that he's appointing respected Interior Department Inspector General Earl Devaney to serve as Chair of the Recovery Act Transparency and Accountability Board. Devaney has built a solid reputation for ferretting out corruption in the beleaguered Interior Department, which was part of the Abramoff scandal.. The president has also asked Vice President Biden to oversee the ...

One More Reason To Fear the Stimulus Package: Joe Biden, Computer Illiterate and Gaffemeister Extraordinaire, Is In Charge of It All
Hit & Run — Fox News delivers the bad news: President Obama has turned to his own vice president to oversee implementation of the $787 billion economic stimulus package, part of which will be available this week for state Medicaid programs.  Vice President Joe Biden, in his new role, would meet regularly with key members of the Cabinet, governors and mayor to make sure their efforts are speedy and effective. He is expected to make regular reports to the president that will be posted online at www.recovery.gov. More here. The idea of Joe Biden—the ...

Why Was Congress Reading Obama's Speech?
Swampland —

VP Biden, So Tough He Doesn’t Need URLs (and Neither Do You)!
The Sundries Shack — biden Who can blame Vice President Biden for getting confused . Those web site numbers are so darned difficult to remember, aren’t they? That’s why the rest of the web-surfing world switched over to those easy to remember names like “recovery.gov” But not Joe Biden. You want to access his web site? You’ll do it Joe’s way, by the IP address. If it’s good enough for the man who grew up on the mean streets of Scranton who proudly represented a proper slave state in the Senate, and who reported for duty to battle the evil Taliban snowstorms in Afghanistan , then it’s good ...

Joe Biden Has Got The Number
Politics Daily — Filed under: Democrats, Joe Biden, Gaffes, HumorThe website number: Heh. It's Recovery.GOV, for the record. Via Redstate and Ace of Spades. Just don't forget, it's ...

Biden: Stimulus Funds are Flowing
Political Punch — Previous | Main Biden: Stimulus Funds are Flowing February 25, 2009 11:55 AM Travers_2 ABC News' Karen Travers reports: Vice President Joe Biden announced today that just a week after President Obama signed the $787 billion economic stimulus bill, $15 billion in Medicaid funds are on their way to state governments and more announcements will come over the next week as the money starts flowing. Biden said the Department of Housing and Urban Development today will give $10 billion to state and local governments to create and fund jobs through public housing projects. Biden chaired the first ...

Dunce Obama Doesn't Know a German Invented the Automobile, Clueless Joe Doesn't Know the 'Number' of His Website
JammieWearingFool — Apparently none of his admirers on television bothered to correct this gaffe last night, all giddy and tingly that they were. President Obama's speech to Congress last night might have emphasized urgency over historical accuracy when he stated, "And I believe the nation that invented the automobile cannot walk away from it." Many inventors contributed to the rise of the car in modern-day life. But the U.S. Library of Congress credits German inventor Karl Benz with creating the first true automobile that ran on an internal combustion engine. Benz came out with his patented car around 1885, or about the ...

Biden: More money coming, public to stay in loop
Daily Kos — Following in the footsteps of President Obama, who earlier this week threatened to call out governors who misspent federal recovery funds, Vice President Joe Biden emerged this morning from his first Recovery Act Implementation meeting vowing that one of the newly formed board's purposes will be to "go on television" and say "nothing's happening," according to a press pool report filed after the event. Meet the American public: the new stick for public officials behaving badly. Not a bad role in a democracy. And there will indeed be some more money to supervise coming quickly down the ...

Recovery.gov: YouTube for geek squad
The Swamp — by Mark Silva To hear the White House tell it, the new stimulus-tracking Web-site -- www.recovery.gov --is going viral. This is the portal that President Barack Obama promised the public as a means of keeping track of all those billions of dollars that the government is funneling into economic stimulus. Peter Orszag, director of the president's Office of Management and Budget, said today that, "We've already stood up a Web-site, recovery.gov, which I'm told is receiving 3,000 hits a second, which I think underscores the interest ...

Obama creates new Internet sensation: www.recovery.gov gets 3,000 hits per second
Top of the Ticket — The website created by the Obama administration to help taxpayers follow the money -- www.recovery.gov -- is becoming a new Internet sensation. Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag, in the first meeting of the overview committee headed by Vice President Joe Biden to monitor how the $787 billion is being spent, said today that the new site is getting 3,000 hits per second. Biden -- flanked in the photo above by Orszag on the left and Earl Devaney, the tough cop running the Accountability Board, on the right -- called the ...

Rev. Lennox Yearwood: Help Wanted: Progressives Who Will Organize!
Politics on HuffingtonPost.com — While watching the President Obama address Congress last night, I was thinking about what progressive groups need to do better to support our President. Then, watching the Republican response from Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, (I too was born in Louisiana and to immigrant parents), I was struck by how disingenuous his speech was. He argued that based on the experience from Hurricane Katrina federal stimulus dollars for his State would be counter-productive. After President Obama's encouraging address, Governor Jindal's remarks were a stark reminder of why as progressives we need ...

Joe Biden's number: 'I'm embarrassed'
The Swamp — by Mark Silva The president may be a BlackBerry fanatic, but the vice president is having a little trouble with his Web-sites - the one, indeed, which the president set up to track all the stimulus spending. And Vice President Joe Biden is the one charged with overseeing the spending of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The morning after President Barack Obama touted his administration's commitment to "honest'' budgeting, Biden wanted to let viewers of the CBS Early Show today know how to find that Web-site, ...

Joe Biden on Recovery.org: “What’s the Number?”
PoliGazette — Gaffemeister…I mean, Vice President Joe Biden (sorry, I sometimes forget he has a new title now) was giving an interview with the Early Show yesterday.  Apparently they were on the subject of government’s new stimulus information site, recovery.gov.  Biden forgot the address, or as he calls it, the “number”: Anchor Maggie Rodriguez: “By the way, do you know the website?” Biden: “You know, I’m embarrassed.”  To someone offscreen: “Do you know the website number?  You know, I should have it in front of me, and I ...

"Activists and Candidates"
The Reaction — ... mandatory moment of silence, because it is already protected in the Constitution. In another case (2/11/09) ACLU of Texas wanted help: Please contact the Office of the Inspector General at the U.S. Department of Justice and request that it conduct a full investigation of RCDC, the Reeves County Detention Center.Reference -- ProPublica introduced Change Tracker: Tracking Change in Washington (2/19/09). It "watches pages on whitehouse.gov, recovery.gov, and financialstability.gov so you don’t have to. When the White House adds ...

AnotherSham.gov
The American Spectator — The Obama Watch AnotherSham.gov By George Neumayr on 2.27.09 @ 6:09AM That Joe Biden the other day didn't even know the name of Recovery.gov captures the essential tackiness and fraudulence of the website. His blarney was punctured by an unwitting and obscure morning anchor, who asked him innocently: "By the way, do you know the name of the website?" He didn't. "Your Money at Work," the slapped-together site announces, before serving up a dreary menu of slipshod, third-rate populism. "Share your Recovery Story. Tell us how the Recovery Act is affecting you. What's working? What ...

GOP launches effort to roote out waste in stimulus
News — GOP launches effort to roote out waste in stimulus A bicameral cadre of congressional Republicans officially announced Thursday afternoon the creation of a task force to root out wasteful spending of the close to trillion dollars in economic stimulus funds. As first reported in The Hill, the new joint House-Senate “Fiscal Responsibility Working Group," will focus on tracking money spent on economic recovery programs to ensure that the administration carries out its pledge to create jobs and prevent waste, fraud and abuse. House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.), the leader of this oversight effort, told ...

President Obama touts transportation jobs, unveils 'recovery' emblem
Top of the Ticket — The market was in free fall, the Dow on Monday falling to 50% below its peak in 2007. The housing market was sinking, with the National Assn. of Realtors reporting today that seasonally adjusted pending U.S. home sales in January sank to a record low, falling 7.7%. And the unemployment rate was inching toward double digits, already far past that in places like Detroit. So today President Obama went to the Transportation Department to tout the job-creating benefits of his just-signed $787-billion stimulus plan. Flanked by Vice ...

Recovery.gov
Seeing the Forest — [image] A web magazine working to restore democracy to our country and economy. Who is our economy FOR, anyway? Seeing the Forest supports Progressives Seeing the Forest STORE Dancimals News Sources: AlterNet BuzzFlash California Progress Report Calitics Common Dreams The Daou Report Drudge Re T ort Huffington Post In These Times OpEd News Raw Story Smirking Chimp Truthdig TruthOut Please help Seeing the Forest meet expenses. You can contribute using Paypal : [image] This is a ...

Help Is On the Way
Discourse.net —

Your tax dollars at work: Bike paths & beautification (plus more logo-mania!)
Michelle Malkin — Have you checked Recovery.gov lately? No need to ask Joe Biden for the, uh, website number. Here’s the link to a chart currently featured on the front page. It informs you that $799 million of the porkulus money will be spent on “mandatory transportation enhancements.” The website explains: “‘Enhancement’ is a legally defined term for projects such as sidewalk repairs, bicycle paths, and beautification projects. Enhancements do not involve vehicle or mass transit related items.” Yup, bike paths and beautification. Your federal tax dollars at work. *** Yesterday’s porkulus logo Photoshop contest ...

Branding the Recovery
techPresident — ... You might have noticed that Recovery.gov is sporting a new logo. The top half of the circular design is given over to eight flag-evoking stars against a slate blue field and, notably, the "recovery.gov" website tag. The bottom left quadrant sports what looks to be a pea sprout against a kelly green background, and the bottom right has a pair of mechanical gears against a deep red backdrop. (Though the gears are interlocking on the logo circulating on the web, they don't look to be on the one Obama debuted. Read into that what you will.) ...

Driving the Government Data Standards Train
techPresident — Development Seed's Ian Cairnes has good rundown over at the Center for American Progress' Science Progress about what good government data empowers citizens to create, using DC's Apps for Democracy contest as a case study. Well worth a read. There's a related wrinkle when it comes to the promise and potential of mashing up government data on the city, state, and federal level. If Recovery.gov succeeds, it seems, it will be example number one for open government advocates as they make the case that good data can actually improve governance -- and boost Americans' faith ...

Clearing the Cache: Fun with Charts
techPresident — Recovery.gov gets started with some citizen-friendly visualizations of the monies going to public infrastructure. Al Gore is backing efforts to get ICANN approval for a ".eco" top-level domain. Amanda Michel tells how Off the Bus worked -- "[events] where mainstream reporters found themselves stuck in pens...were our specialty" -- and discusses the future of "pro-am" journalism. A retired federal web manager urges putting some teeth into the ...

New Symbols From the Obama '08 Design Team To Tout Recovery Projects
BuzzFlash.org - Progressive News and Commentary with an Attitude | Fight Ignorance: Read BuzzFlash — A BUZZFLASH NEWS ALERT by Christine Bowman The Chicago-based design firm that came up with the "O"-shaped campaign logo for the Obama '08 Campaign is back with some new emblems for the Obama Administration to use going forward. All things "recovery," in other words, projects funded through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), will be identified as such with a circle logo divided into three parts. Throughout the country, wherever recovery funds are spent to restore or update a building or to move other projects forward, the recovery.gov emblem will be ...

Quit Hoarding the Taxpayers' Money, and Pass The Budget Bill, Please
BuzzFlash.org - Progressive News and Commentary with an Attitude | Fight Ignorance: Read BuzzFlash — A BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS by Christine Bowman Everybody’s angry, including me. Today I’m mad about the stalled budget bill, which the self-righteous John Boehner and like-minded federal money-managing hypocrites in the Senate, John McCain chief among them, have kept from passing. Call me naïve, but when I dutifully pay my taxes, I then expect my tax dollars to be spent. I expect the government to keep running without requiring a stop-gap measure. If that makes me a tax and spend Democrat, it sure beats being the tax and hoard GOP. When Americans pay their taxes and elect a Congress, to which the U.S. ...

The Interactive Presidency
The Moderate Voice — FDR gave Americans fireside chats on radio. JFK came into living rooms through live TV news conferences. Barack Obama is connecting with worried voters by Internet–email, online videos and proliferating web sites. In each case, as a new medium of communication became universal, the White House wired into it to speak directly to people–one at a time. What’s different now is that voters are invited to talk back, which may in part account for the President’s continuing popularity during the darkest period in generations. In this interactive presidency, Americans ...

Ari Herzog: Why 83% of U.S. Government Managers Agree Their Agencies are Ineffective
Politics on HuffingtonPost.com — ... The President is trying to meet the nature of these demands, such as the recent launch of recovery.gov to illustrate the "how, when, and where" of reinvestment into the economy; but as some have undeniably shown, there's a ...

Recovery.gov
Seeing the Forest — Recovery.gov -- by Dave Johnson Have you visited Recovery.gov lately? Go read the FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions). Look at the timeline for distribution of the recovery money. Etc... They will be showing where the money goes in the spring, as the agencies start reporting in. Has your local newspaper, TV or radio news told the public about Recovery.gov, or are they instead telling people what Britney is wearing? Posted by Dave Johnson at March 12, 2009 10:30 AM ----> Scroll down to see comments. To reach the home page of this blog click here. Share this post: [image] ...

Let Vivek Kundra Do His Job
techPresident — In December 2007, the then-Chief Technology Officer of Washington, DC, Vivek Kundra, testified before a committee of the city council on " Theft and Fraud Prevention in District Government Agencies." ...

Freddoso: Year of the RAT
Articles on National Review Online — B efore winning passage of his $787 billion stimulus package, President Obama gave a very broad promise of unprecedented transparency and accountability. His precise words to a joint session of Congress last month: I have told each of my Cabinet, as well as mayors and governors across the country, that they will be held accountable by me and the American people for every dollar they spend. The promise of transparency has been essential for selling this package to the public. To keep it, Obama started Recovery.gov ...

Stimulus Money Not Being Adequately Tracked
The Agonist - thoughtful, global, timely — One of the most exciting things about finally having a Democratic administration in office is that it sets the right goals and hires the right people. One of Barack Obama's most laudable goals is to have a government that is transparent to its citizens. His Recovery.gov site which promises to "track every last dime of the stimulus spending is one of the most laudable federal projects in recent memory. Even better is the impressive public servant that President Obama has pegged to head up the operation, Earl Devaney: Unfortunately, Mr. Devaney has been given a nearly ...

All The Known Gaffes Of The Obama World
Jules Crittenden — [image] « Apology Accepted All The Known Gaffes Of The Obama World UK Telegraph Toby Harnden  cruelly lines up his Top 10 Obama-Biden gaffes. More gaffeology follows, in what I hope to establish as a repository of Obama errata: 10.  Just after he’s been sworn in by him, the newly-minted Vice President Joe Biden gets the name of Justice John Paul Stephens, “one of the great justices” of the Supreme Court, wrong by calling him “Justice Stewart.” 9. Barack Obama jokes about Nancy Reagan having séances in the White House. He later called her to apologise  after the AP noted that ...

A Start For Stimulus Show-and-Tell
The Moderate Voice — State by state, the Recovery Scoreboard is lighting up with projects to be funded by some of the $787 billion Congress passed last month to get the economy moving again. Just keeping track of the money, let alone spending it wisely, is going to be a monumental job as governors appoint overseeing groups and, in some cases, “czars” to make sure the money is not fraudulently or stupidly spent. The Recovery.gov web site is getting almost 4,000 hits a second, according to the chairman of the federal Transparency and Accountability Board, but it’s not clear how many of ...

Top Ten Barack Obama/Joe Biden Gaffes
Politics Daily — Filed under: Democrats, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Gaffes, Obama AdministrationThere's a UK Telegraph article on that subject that's making the rounds of internet comments sections since Barack Obama's Special Olympics gaffe. While I think that 10 gaffes in 4 months isn't such a bad record, I'll share it here anyway, in the interest of fairness. With Biden in the mix, 10 gaffes should be called "a good day's work." However, I don't want to ship American commentary jobs overseas, and I'm not thrilled with the British press' snotty attitude toward our ...

Obama's Recovery: Hope has a face
The Swamp — by Mark Silva Recovery has a new face. However, the Obama administration's unveiling of a logo for the Recovery Act could make some appreciative that that Smiley Face already is copyrighted. In the newly unveiled logo for the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, our colleague Andrew Malcolm notes at Top of the Ticket, they also "didn't have room on it for the trillion 000,000,000,000,000's.'' "But it does have gears to represent the American automobile industry that's on its way out and the ...

The Comeback Brand
BAGnewsNotes — Your take on the recovery logo?

Obama Word Games: The Meaning Of "Recovery"
Swampland — In the case of a word like democracy, not only is there no agreed definition, but the attempt to make one is resisted from all sides. It is almost universally felt that when we call a country democratic we are praising it: consequently the defenders of every kind of regime claim that it is a democracy, ...

Can Recovery.Gov Get Local in Time to Help?
techPresident — Teaser:  Economic recovery -- and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act in particular -- is big business in more ways than one. Firms and individuals with years of experience wading in the flow of government monies are ...

Obama touts housing success
The Swamp — By Rebecca Cole At an economic roundtable this morning, President Barack Obama touted the success he said was due in part to his housing recovery plan, calling it "good news" for American families in the midst of a dire economy and problems in the financial markets. Surrounded by a handful of families who he said have already lowered their bills, Obama pointed to the "extraordinary actions by the Federal Reserve" to reduce mortgage interest rates to historic lows -- currently the 30-year fixed mortgage rate stands at around 4.78 percent, an all-time low -- and to Treasury Secretary Tim ...

Employee Free Choice Act: How to Bail Out Workers Without Spending Taxpayer Money
BuzzFlash.org - Progressive News and Commentary with an Attitude | Fight Ignorance: Read BuzzFlash — [image] AN ONGOING BUZZFLASH SERIES ON THE GOP ECONOMIC WAR AGAINST AMERICAN WORKING FAMILIES by Meg White  A lot of economic news coverage these days includes the obligatory working-class person grabbing the mic and asking, "Where's my bailout? Where's my stimulus package?"Unfortunately most of that coverage is now focused on the "tea parties," which are inventions of well-off conservatives who are upset by President Obama's plan to end Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy and who feel the need to make up stories about fascism to attract followers to their anti-tax cult. The reason for the made-up stories is ...

WIST of the day
SCSUScholars — WIST = Wish I'd Said That. Today's hero, Price Fishback in Q&A on the stimulus package at the Council on Foreign Relations: There seems to be a little bit of disconnect. The government has always built roads, it's always built infrastructure and things like this. I think the point that Ellen's trying to make in this context is if you're expecting it to be a big stimulus, it's not that -- it's not going to be a huge stimulus, but if you build these roads and bridges and things along these lines on the basis of what their cost and benefits look like, that makes a lot of sense to do ...

Mike Pickett: Recovery.gov Not Keeping Up With Stimulus Spending
Politics on HuffingtonPost.com — President Obama held a widely-covered press conference this week touting the 2000th transportation project funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. And Vice President Biden said, "the Recovery Act is being implemented with speed, transparency and accountability." With this kind of press coverage, one might believe that the government is staying on top of the Recovery spending. However, our research shows that the actual number of transportation projects obligated thus far is closer to 5000, indicating that not only is Recovery Act funding unclear to the taxpaying American public, it ...

Recovery IGs Call for Week of Public Discussion on Best Practices
techPresident — Hop on over to Recovery.gov, scroll down to the middle of the page, and direct your attention to the the center column. Intriguing, right? Really, you couldn't be bothered to check it out yourself? Okay, fine. I understand. You're busy. That's what I'm here for. The deal is that some of the folks responsible for managing the oversight of the spending of billions and billions in recovery funds -- Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board (the collection of agency IGs under the chairship of Earl Devaney), OMB, and the National Academy of Public Administration -- have announced ...

Private Sector Zips Past Government in Stimulus-Bill Tracking
The Corner on National Review Online — Wednesday, April 22, 2009 [image] Private Sector Zips Past Government in Stimulus-Bill Tracking [ Veronique de Rugy ] In the competition between Recovery.org and Recovery.gov, I know where my money goes: On March 31, Seattle-based Onvia launched Recovery.org, a site capable of tracking every dollar of federal, state and local Recovery Act spending in real time, according to company officials. For example, assume you are a resident of Yellowstone, Mont., and want to know how your county is spending its portion of stimulus funding. Through three drop-down menus on Recovery.org's homepage, you could scroll ...

Feds Asking for Help on How, Exactly, to Recovery.gov
techPresident — We've mentioned before that the cast of characters behind stimulus spending oversight is convening a week of online dialogue, kicking off Monday, and we've got some more details. According to a one-pager being sent around by the National Academy of Public Administration, the idea for the discussion came from House Government Reform Committee chair Ed Towns (D-NY). The hope is to create an ambitiously "vendor-neutral" space in which to talk over the more technical aspects of recovery oversight. In particular, says NAPA, the week of discussion is intended to cover IT ...

Craig Newmark: Help out the national economic recovery online at Recovery.gov
Politics on HuffingtonPost.com — The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act calls for an unprecedented level of transparency and accountability.  President Obama has designated Recovery.gov as the main portal where people can see where and how stimulus dollars are being spent. The deal is this way, you can see where the money goes. However, building something like that is really hard. The required data is all over the place, stored in a lot of different formats. The people doing this, the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board are asking for your help. In partnership with the non-profit, non-partisan National ...

The Stimulus Spending Isn't Fast Enough
The Atlantic Politics Channel — The administration's website for tracking the stimulus spending, recovery.gov, has started to fill up with loads of useful information that is worth checking out. In particular, take a look at the spending updates. Bob Williams of the wonderful TaxVox blog says the spending has "gotten off to an encouraging start" and we should "watch to see how the game plays out." I agree with the latter part: It's too early to judge the stimulus. But I really don't see what's so encouraging about the information the government has released. If anything, it's evidence that the government had better spend ...

Craig Newmark: WhiteHouse.gov: Pragmatism and the Nobility of Public Service
Politics on HuffingtonPost.com — WhiteHouse.gov is a great start, and is part of something much bigger which we're only beginning to understand. It's part of a number of social media efforts which also include recovery.gov, nationalservice.gov, the new HealthReform.gov, and the entirety of the accountability and transparency movement. While I'm pretty excited about what we can do with social media, I feel the the greatest potential related to these efforts is not about the technology. It's about the culture, the people working on these efforts. They're ...

Obama Stimulus Tracking Site Up and Running By… October
RedState: Conservative News and Community — I have not yet blogged about Recovery.org, the indispensable site set up by Onvia to keep track of how the Obama administration is spending your ’stimulus’ money. Recovery.org offers a number of ways to search - by state, county and program. They provide updates on how much stimulus funding is spent over time, and how may jobs the administration contends have been created (or saved). The site is doing quite well considering that it must rely on federal agencies for much of its information. While Recover.org is a private site, the Obama administration has also set up its own site - ...

Dot Gov or Dot Org? The Battle of the Public/Private Recovery Sites Happens Today
techPresident — There's an interesting head-to-head happening in Congress today that will once and for all settle the question of whether Washington should leave complex technical projects to those outside of government with the resources, experience, and super ninja skills often lacked in DC. Okay, perhaps that's overstating things. But this afternoon's House Science Committee hearing on "Government and Public Resources for Recovery Act Oversight" should shine some light on the competition between Recovery.gov and Recovery.org, both of which aim to track more than $700 billion in ...

Can Recovery.gov Succeed Absent a "Magic Wand"?
techPresident — "There is no parent-child relationship between the Federal, State, County, and Municipal governments." That Eric Gillespie of the private company behind Recovery.org, testifying before Bart Gordon's House Science Committee yesterday and speaking the words on Recovery.gov that still dare not be spoken in polite company. Conducting the kind of oversight set forth by the stimulus package is as messy as knowing when, where, and how to discipline other people's kids. But oversight of the over $700 billion in public funds pumped out into the country as ...

Obama's Stimulus Accountability Lacking
Drudge Retort — Although President Obama has vowed that citizens will be able to track "every dime" of the $787 billion stimulus bill, a government site dedicated to the spending won't have details on contracts and grants until October and may not be complete until next spring, administration officials said. Posted by joe at 08:17 PM | 12 COMMENTS | permalink | Comment on This Entry

Reason.tv: Why the Private Sector, Not the Feds, Is Tracking Stimulus Spending in Real Time—Q&A with Recovery.org honcho Mike Pickett
Hit & Run — ... Remember the day when President Barack Obama promised that concerned citizens would be able to track "every dime" of stimulus money online? He was talking about the official government website, Recovery.gov. ...

Reason.tv Redux: Why The Privately Owned Site Recovery.org, Not The Feds' Own Recovery.gov, Is Tracking Stimulus Spending in Real Time
Hit & Run — ... Remember the day when President Barack Obama promised that concerned citizens would be able to track "every dime" of stimulus money online? He was talking about the official government website, Recovery.gov. ...

Stuart Whatley: It's Not About North Korea
Politics on HuffingtonPost.com — In the international scheme of things, North Korea is undoubtedly the proverbial problem child lashing out to capture the parents' attention. And as with most miscreant children, the crux of the problem is not so much the child as it is the enabling parent -- which in this case is surely China. The aftermath of the Hermit Kingdom's nuke test this week saw theories aplenty as to Kim Jong-Il's motives and intent, as if solving that puzzle will solve the problem itself. But as more senior US diplomats now reluctantly acknowledge, altering China's posture (namely, its seemingly unconditional trade and aid ...

Obama's stimulus: First 100 days, 'spin?'
The Swamp — by Mark Silva In the first 100 days of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act -- a.k.a. the $787-billion economic stimulus act -- the White House maintains that 150,000 jobs already have been saved or created. The GOP, whose House members unanimously opposed the act which the president signed into law on Feb. 17, calls the initiative "100 days of haste.'' "Just 100 days into the two-year economic recovery program, over $112 billion in Recovery Act funds has been obligated to stimulative programs and projects and over 150,000 jobs have been created or ...

Stimulus Spending Overstated by Obama Officials
The Caucus — When the Obama administration issued its first quarterly report on the $787 billion stimulus package earlier this month, prompting questions about the rate of stimulus spending, it overstated how much money had been actually been spent by roughly a third. The report said that “as of May 5, $28.5 billion had already been outlaid.’’ That figure included $11.5 billion in payments the Labor Department reported making to the unemployment trust fund. The Labor Department has now revised its figure, reporting that it has only actually paid $1.1 billion to the unemployment trust fund. The ...

'Government Trips in Tracking the Stimulus Money'
The Corner on National Review Online — Friday, May 29, 2009 [image] 'Government Trips in Tracking the Stimulus Money' [ Veronique de Rugy ] Everyone makes mistakes. But not everyone makes a $8.9 billion mistake. According to Wahsington Wire , the mistake was made on Obama's Recovery.gov , the website that supposedly tracks how the stimulus money is being spent: A Reporting the Progress chart showing the pace at which money has been flowing from the $787 billion plan seemed to indicate the total amount spent declined between the first and second weeks of this month. What happened? The Department of Labor accidentally reported that ...

Single Most Effective Republican Spokesperson on Stimulus: 'You May Already Be Getting Scammed'
Weekly Standard Blog — Well, it's a close race with Nancy Pelosi, but Joe Biden is pulling ahead: "We know some of this money is going to be wasted," Biden said during a roundtable discussion in New York with business leaders aimed at promoting the two-year stimulus plan... "There are going to be mistakes made," said Biden. "Some people are being scammed already." Is it time to start a grassroots movement to keep this guy on the ticket in 2012, or what? I would donate post-haste. The man speaks the truth and he adds that the Obama administration's ability to make ...

The Not-So-Stimulating Stimulus Spending
The Corner on National Review Online — Wednesday, June 03, 2009 [image] The Not-So-Stimulating Stimulus Spending [ Veronique de Rugy ] The editors over at the New York Times have an interesting piece about the negative consequences of the Buy American provision in the stimulus bill. But first they want to explain why there might have been a good reason to put it in there: It s not surprising that Democrats in Congress could not resist adding a Buy American provision to the fiscal stimulus bill earlier this year. It might seem sensible (or at least politically useful) to ensure that taxpayer dollars would be used exclusively to ...

Obama Unveils Plan To Speed Up Recovery. Recovery To Be Hardest Hit.
doubleplusundead — Obama Unveils Plan To Speed Up Recovery. Recovery To Be Hardest Hit. Why is it I have a feeling of dread about this plan? Construction equipment manufacturers Caterpillar Inc. and Deere & Co. are among companies that may benefit from federal contracts for some of the work. “We have a long way to go on our road to recovery but we are going the right way,” Obama said in the statement . “Our measure of progress is the progress the American people see in their own lives. And until that progress is steady and solid; we’re going to keep moving forward. ... The new projects are being framed as the ...

Obama White House Keeping Old Spending Site Tuned Until Recovery.gov Gets Up to Speed
techPresident — Over on NextGov (which, if you have an interest in tech policy, you really should be reading rather regularly), Gautham Nagesh reports that with Recovery.gov struggling to get its footing, some are recommending that the two-year-old USASpending.gov site step into the breach. USASpending, created as a result of legislation jointly authored by Oklahoma Republican Senator Tom Coburn and a then junior Democratic Senator from Illinois by the name of Barack Obama, is not without its own troubles. The site has struggled to get timely ...

Daily Digest | Have Data, Will Travel
techPresident — The Data.gov Idea Seems to Have Legs (and, Perhaps, Fins) The British Government's Cabinet Office is musing about what a "UK version of data.gov" might look like. What makes the prospect of government-run data hub across the pond somewhat differently intriguing than it is in the U.S. is that Britain has a less robust presumption of information freedom. Could be fascinating to watch how they wrestle with both the technological and political implications of open data . Organizing for America's House Parties: Selling Health Reform Door to Door Organizing for America, the citizen-organizing ...

Don't let solar grind to a halt
BlueOregon — Back in 2007, I got really excited when Multnomah County announced a groundbreaking solar energy installation. That deal, which is currently about one-quarter finished, will eventually generate 1,000,000 kWh of clean, renewable energy (for no added cost to taxpayers) because of the Business Energy Tax Credit, otherwise known as BETC. Unfortunately, the Multnomah County solar project--so big it will double the amount of energy generated by solar power in Oregon once completed--is on shaky ground as I type. It is in imminent danger of being canceled because of House Bill ...

ProPublica: Stimulus Numbers: Transparent, Yes. Intelligible? No.
Politics on HuffingtonPost.com — by Christopher Flavelle, ProPublica One of our goals for tracking the $787 billion stimulus package is figuring out how much each federal agency is actually spending — something that's trickier than it sounds: The numbers on each agency's Web site are far from clear, and they don't always add up with other publicly available figures. Consider the U.S. Agriculture Department. The department's Web site dedicated to the stimulus says, "USDA was appropriated $28 billion (3.5 percent) of the package." So Congress authorized USDA to spend a ...

Kevin Glass: Where's the "Stimulus"?
Townhall.com Blog's TownHall Blog — Preliminary results from Barack Obama's stimulus are coming in. The news is not good. Four months on from Barack Obama's stimulus package, we're seeing an explosion of analysis of what's actually been happening to the hundreds of billions of taxpayer money being doled out. Recovery.org ...

Obama's "Online Townhall" Forum: Transparency Theater?
techPresident — During last year's election, candidate Barack Obama staked out an expansive position on the ways that technology and the internet could be harnessed to open up the political process to ordinary citizens. And so far his administration has been delivering on many of his promises, most notably with projects like Data.gov ...

Joe Biden: We 'Misread the Economy'
Politics Daily — Filed under: Democrats, Republicans, Barack Obama, Economy, Obama AdministrationIn an interview with ABC's George Stephanopoulos this weekend, Vice President Joe Biden gave a candid assessment of the administration's initial reading of the nation's economic problems. Watch: To the right of the administration, Republican critics argue that the stimulus hasn't worked and that the government never should have spent the money. To the left, detractors like New York Times columnist Paul Krugman argue ...

Daily Digest | Keyboards vs. Guns
techPresident — Obama's "Online Townhall" Forum: Transparency Theater? During last year's election, candidate Barack Obama staked out an expansive position on the ways that technology and the internet could be harnessed to open up the political process to ordinary citizens. And so far his administration has been delivering on many of his promises, most notably with projects like Data.gov , IT.usaspending.gov and the Open Government Initiative , and potentially as well with the as-yet unfinished Recovery.gov site. But one element of his technology innovation agenda seems stuck in ...

Obamanomics Employment Opportunities
Moonbattery — I was skeptical when our leftist rulers promised to create jobs by imposing suffocating regulations on businesses and flushing $trillions of dollars down welfare programs, crony capitalism bailouts, industry nationalization, and ludicrous pork projects. But it turns out that Obamanomics has produced some job opportunities after all. Following a link from the Recovery Act Opportunities page at Recovery.com, we find that the Porkulus Package has produced a staggering 63 job openings. Why, that's probably a whole government job for every 100,000 jobs that will be destroyed as ...

Obamanomics Employment Opportunities
Right Wing News — I was skeptical when our leftist rulers promised to create jobs by imposing suffocating regulations on businesses and flushing $trillions of dollars down welfare programs, crony capitalism bailouts, industry nationalization, and ludicrous pork projects. But it turns out that Obamanomics has produced some job opportunities after all. Following a link from the Recovery Act Opportunities ...

$18 Million to Redesign Recovery.gov
James Richardson's Skepticians — Reminiscent of the no-bid, cost-plus contracts awarded in the Bush administration to defense contractors, ABC News reported last night the Obama Administration awarded a 5 year $18 million contract to Smartronix, a Maryland-based IT firm with connections to House Majority Leader Steny Hoye r , for the redesign of Recovery.gov . Launched in February to track the expenditures of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, Recovery.gov was to be the pinnacle of web-enabled transparency, according to President Barack Obama . “The site is the tip of the iceberg for the effort that will go ...

$18 Million to Redesign Recovery.gov
RedState: Conservative News and Community — Reminiscent of the no-bid, cost-plus contracts awarded in the Bush administration to defense contractors, ABC News reported last night the Obama Administration awarded a 5 year $18 million contract to Smartronix, a Maryland-based IT firm with connections to House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, for the redesign of Recovery.gov. Launched in February to track the expenditures of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, Recovery.gov was to be the pinnacle of web-enabled transparency, according to President Barack Obama. “The ...

Meredith Jessup: Government Spends More to Show How it's Spending
Townhall.com Blog's TownHall Blog — Smartronix, Inc. has been tapped by the General Services Administration (GSA) to spruce up the government's stimulus money-tracking website Recovery.gov . The agency awarded the $9.5 million government contract to Smartronix late Wednesday on behalf of the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board responsible for tracking spending under the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act. Think $9.5 million is a little excessive for redesigning a website? Smartronix is also slated to receive an additional $8.5 million for website "maintenance" through January 2014. Spokesman Ed Pound says the website, ...

Making Political Hay Out of Recovery.gov's Price Tag
techPresident — Factoring in the expense of design work, reasonable labor fees, fixed hardware costs, and a rushed six-month development window, is $9 million unreasonably pricey for a new and improved Recovery.gov? Smart and informed people are having that debate in the Sunlight Labs discussion group. Join in. Meanwhile, though, the RNC has quickly pounced on the $18 million overall price tag on the redesign contract in a new web spot hitting Obama on the effectiveness of stimulus spending. And it's bubbled up to Fox News, outrage meter ...

Daily Digest | Making Hay Out of Recovery.gov
techPresident — Making Political Hay Out of Recovery.gov's Price Tag Factoring in the expense of design work, reasonable labor fees, fixed hardware costs, and a rushed six-month development window, is $9 million unreasonably pricey for a new and improved Recovery.gov ? Smart and informed people are having that debate in the Sunlight Labs discussion group. Join in . Meanwhile, though, the RNC has quickly pounced on the $18 million overall price tag on the redesign contract in a new web spot hitting Obama on the effectiveness of stimulus spending ... Needed: Better Tools and Data for ...

Stimulus Stew
The Moderate Voice — The state of the economy is iffy at best but, less than six months after its passage, the market for badmouthing the stimulus bill is booming. On the left, Paul Krugman insists that a “bad employment report for June made it clear that the stimulus was, indeed, too small” and “damaged the credibility of the administration’s economic stewardship.” From right field, House Minority Whip Eric Cantor tells us “the stimulus or so-called stimulus plan that spent almost $800 billion has not worked,” while economist Karl Rove proclaims that ...

"Tracking the Stimulus? Good Luck" Or, Your Stimulus Dollars at Work, Doing Things No Man or Woman Can Understand
Hit & Run — That's the Cinncinati Enquirer's lede in a story about the government's underwhelming effort to tell us citizens and peons just how much we're being stimulated by our own past, present, and especially future tax dollars: It's a simple question: How much stimulus money has the region received so far? The answer: No one knows. Despite assurances from the Obama Administration that stimulus spending would be fully transparent, the system for tracking stimulus spending is fractured, redundant and disorganized. The system is such a mess that the federal government announced this ...

Daily Digest | Playing "Not It" with Recovery.gov
techPresident — Recovery.gov Redesign Contract Caught in Game of "Not It" Both GSA and the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board are calling "not it" when it comes to providing a window onto the process by which a Maryland company was awarded up to $18 million for the redesign of Recovery.gov . And both are claiming they are impossibly yoked by government procedure. While the original statement of work on the contract has been floating around the web, the terms of the relationship between the federal government and the web contractor Smartronix aren't known. Neither are the details of the other bids made ...

Recovery.Gov Needs More Stimulus
Drudge Retort — Monday, July 13, 2009 Recovery.Gov Needs More Stimulus For those concerned about stimulus spending, the General Services Administration sends word tonight that $18 million in additional funds are being spent to redesign the Recovery.gov web site. Posted by cookfish at 07:31 PM | 5 COMMENTS | permalink | Comment on This Entry

Obama team spending $18 million to redesign Recovery.gov already
Top of the Ticket —  Recovery.gov is the Obama administration's website for tracking government stimulus spending. Will there soon be a tracking explanation of the $18 million that the administration has recently dedicated to redesigning and maintaining the newly-launched site for the next four and a half years? The Maryland-based Smartronix Inc. won a bid for $9.5 million to redesign the already-functional Recovery.gov by January and up to $18 million through 2014, according to a press release from the General Services Administration. ...

Daily Digest | A One-Two Tech-Powered Public Diplomacy Punch
techPresident — ... have become watch words in Obama's Washington. But when it comes to the Fed, all bets are off. The institution is even exempt from the law ( § 714, title 31 ) that empowers the Government Accountability Office from examining and publicizing their reporting on how government entities work. But there's a chance that that those open government mores might be imposed upon the Federal Reserve ... Recovery.gov's Multi-Million Dollar Redesign Project Had Few Takers Recovery.gov , it seems, had very few invitations to the dance to chose from. InformationWeek's J. ...

All signs point to an endless recovery!
Classical Values — ... for people who never get well by definition. Recovery is a lifelong process! You know, it never goes away? So now they have a website called Recovery.gov . (How much it cost, the Lord only knows.) Seriously, I wish I had not known about this, but now, thanks to the piece Sean linked, I do. While the logo may have some artistic value, I know propaganda when I see it, and the above is clearly propaganda. And what's with the stuffing of the elements of the American flag into a circle, anyway? Why the green plant? Is American vegetation dying because of a lack of CO2 or ...

Craig Newmark: Anil Dash: online gov't the best startup of 2009?
Politics on HuffingtonPost.com — Hey, Anil reminds us that White House open gov't initiative is novel and getting results. In some results, it's run like a really good Silicon Valley startup. Check out The Most Interesting New Tech Startup of 2009 Now, .gov websites have historically been backwaters at best, a bunch of awkwardly-designed, poorly defined sites that only met the bare requirements of a web presence. But of course the current administration is comprised in great part of digital natives, and it's remarkable how quickly they've remade the .gov world into not just a number ...

Is the Stimulus Working?
The Moderate Voice — Yes, no, maybe, depending on the beholder’s politics, economic theories and selective reading of the meager statistics and evidence available. Vice-President Biden speechified yesterday that, after 200 days, the $787 billion stimulus, although not a “single silver bullet” but “silver buckshot,” was helping the economy. “Without it we’d be in much deeper trouble,” he said, claiming that “Instead of talking about the beginning of a depression, we are talking about the end of a recession.” As unemployment reaches 9.7 percent, Republican Chairman Michael Steele was quick ...

Power at the Edges: Among DC's Lesser Known CTOs and CIOs
techPresident — At an informal press gaggle of sorts that took place after he left the ballroom stage at the Gov 2.0 Summit, U.S. CTO Aneesh Chopra was eager to take the spotlight off of himself and make a point that you often hear in conversations around DC. Being the first official Chief Technology Officer of the United States comes with a relatively high-profile, in certain circles at least. That said, much of the innovation, experimentation, and ultimately success or failure of technology in Obama's Washington will depend not on him, but on the CTOs and CIOs with operational authority and hefty budgets ...

The Three Branches of We.Gov
techPresident — There’s a very interesting confluence of conversations taking place at the moment on the topic of how technology is changing politics. One is on the idea of government 2.0, or government-as-a-platform. The second is on whether the net is better for campaigning than governing. And the third is on what happens when you open up the process with real-time transparency. Let me see if I can combine the threads. 1. Can we "co-create" government? First, the notion of “Government 2.0” is on the rise. In particular, thanks to the energetic efforts of Tim O’Reilly, the idea that we can perhaps improve on the current ...

New Recovery.gov Goes Live, Key Data to Be Released Later
WSJ.com: Washington Wire — Louise Radnofsky reports on the economic stimulus package. The new version of Recovery.gov, the official administration site for the economic stimulus plan, went live this morning, promising “Data, Data & More Data.” But most of the big stuff will come later, when recipients of stimulus funds start reporting how they’re using the money. For now, there are some new features, including maps of stimulus spending from federal agencies, and the chance to search for stimulus contracts, grants and loans by Zip Code. For example, here’s ...

Revamped Recovery.gov Digs Up Projects in Your Hood
techPresident — A brand-new Recovery.gov went live this morning. The site, part of the controversial $18 million contract awarded to Smartronix this summer, is something of an empty shell until the people and organizations who actually took in some of the $787 billion in federal spending (what an awed Recovery Act Transparency and Accountability Board chair Earl Devaney describes, in a way that isn't really all that reassuring, "a phenomenal amount of money") have to report back in on their projects. That due date on that first-round of quarterly reporting is this Thursday, ...

Stimulus Website Relaunched, Upgraded
Politics on HuffingtonPost.com — Reporting from Washington - Since February, when the government launched a website, Recovery.gov, to provide a window on the federal stimulus package, critics have been calling for a makeover. Now they have one. The revamped website, unveiled today by the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board at a cost of $9.5 million in stimulus funds, provides easier-to-use tools, such as a ZIP Code search that shows stimulus projects in local communities. The government has also opened a toll-free hot line (1-877-FWA-DESK) for reporting fraud, waste and abuse. ...

Looking Through a Window Into a Room Full of Junk (A Capitol Hill Sketch)
techPresident — The Senate's ad hoc Subcommittee on Contracting Oversight held a hearing this morning. The subject: "Improving Transparency and Accessibility of Federal Contracting Databases." ...

Biden's Recovery.gov site gets overhauled
Top of the Ticket — ... a couple of months ago on redesigning and maintaining Recovery.gov? Well, the new version of the Obama administration's website for tracking stimulus spending launched on Monday. ...

Townhall.com Staff: Fiscal New Year Resolution: Fiscal Responsibility
Townhall.com Blog's TownHall Blog — Guest blog post from Rep. Lynn Jenkins (Kan.) Though the actual “new year” is January 1, last week marked the start of a new fiscal year for the federal government. This gives us an opportunity to start anew and restore fiscal responsibility and discipline to Washington. We cannot borrow and spend our way back to prosperity. It is time to get our nation’s debt under control and work toward a balanced budget. Prior to my election to Congress last October, Congress passed a $700 billion financial institution bailout. This was a one-year, emergency program intended to fend off a more severe economic downturn. ...

First hard stimulus data finds only 30,000 jobs saved or created
News — ... The first direct stimulus reports showed that stimulus contracts saved or created just 30,083 jobs, prompting more Republican criticism of the $787 billion package. ...

Thanks Obama. I think….
South Dakota War College — From the Rapid City Journal comes a great illustration of government in action: According to the federal government’s Web site, www.recovery.gov, about $173.2 billion of the $787 billion stimulus has been distributed as of Oct. 8 in tax benefits, federal contracts, grants and loans. And after all that money has been spent, a total of 30,383 jobs have been created. Uh, OK. That works out to $5.7 million per new ...

AP: Administration overstated stimulus jobs
Hot Air » Top Picks — AP: Administration overstated stimulus jobs posted at 8:48 am on October 29, 2009 by Ed Morrissey Share on Facebook | printer-friendly Two weeks ago, the Obama administration finally got around to documenting the number of jobs “saved or created” by Porkulus thus far … and came up with a whopping 30,083 jobs .  Even that, as it turns out, was greatly inflated.  The AP does the math that the White House was apparently too incompetent to do itself and discovers that 5,000 of those “saved or created” jobs were created, all right — out of someone’s imagination: An early progress ...

PA Stimulus Jobs
Above Average Jane — From the inbox: The Obama Administration today reported that recipients of Recovery Act funds have informed the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board that they have created or saved 7,427 direct jobs in Pennsylvania in reports covering a little less than half of the funds put to work through September 30, 2009. Nationwide, recipients of Recovery Act funds reported 640,329 direct jobs as a result of this portion of spending. These reports, covering only directly created jobs and less than half the funds, support government and private forecaster’s estimates that overall the Recovery ...

Michael Barone: Hold the Champagne: Happy Days Aren't Here Again
TownHall Latest columns — The recession is over, we are told. The Commerce Department announced Thursday that the economy grew in the third quarter of 2009 by 3.5 percent. Great, huh? Maybe not. About half that growth came from the Cash for Clunkers program, which transferred into the third quarter auto sales that would have occurred later. The expiring tax credit of $8,000 for first-time homebuyers stimulated some house sales. Most of the impact of the $787 billion stimulus package, we are told by the Obama White House, has already been felt. Arguing with Idiots By Glenn Beck ...

640,329
AMERICAblog News| A great nation deserves the truth — 640,329. That's how many jobs the White House claims were created by the stimulus package. You can find it on their Web site Recovery.gov. And the number is almost certainly wrong, but not for the reasons you will hear from John Boehner or any of the other knee-jerk naysayers. Numbers like these are the result of the White House telling people lower down: "We need numbers and we need them now. We are getting pressure to show results, and you need to tell us how many jobs were created or saved by stimulus money. Do it and do it now." Well, I dont know about you, but when MY boss tells me ...

In the Battle for Stimulus Jobs, Shoe Store Owner Tells War Story
WSJ.com: Washington Wire — Louise Radnofsky reports on how the stimulus money is being spent. How did Kentucky shoe store owner Buddy Moore save nine jobs with just $889.60 in federal stimulus money? He didn’t, and that’s turning into a big headache for him. Moore’s store in Campbellsville, Ky., filed one of 156,614 reports from recipients of stimulus dollars designed to show how money from the $787 billion program is being spent, and how many jobs the funds have created or saved. Moore’s slice of the stimulus came in an $889.60 order from the Army Corps of ...

Recovery.gov Is Decadent and Depraved, Especially When It Comes To Doling Out Useful Information
Hit & Run — ... The most relevant information on Recovery.gov is that most of the jobs created or saved are in the public sector. For instance, according to Vice President Biden, out of the 640,329 jobs, 325,000 went to education and 80,000 to construction jobs. The difference we will soon find out is going to other government jobs. ...

More Evidence of Bad Job-Creation Data on Recovery.Org -- By: Veronique de Rugy
The Corner on National Review Online — Promises, promises. Obviously, it was easy for President Obama to make promises about how we would be able to see how stimulus dollars were spent and how transparent this administration was going to be. Turns out, in practice, the administration and its bureaucrats on the ground in the states are as bad as their predecessors. ...

John R. Bohrer: Hold the Hofstadter: Why the GOP Is Winning 2010
Politics on HuffingtonPost.com — Over the last few months, a number of prominent political columnists have pointed to historian and social critic Richard Hofstadter to explain what is happening to the Republican Party. 1964's The Paranoid Style in American Politics and his 1954 essay, "The Pseudo-Conservative Revolt," among others, tell us why so many Republicans are lashing out at town halls and tea parties. And because the protesters make a lot of noise, wave disgusting signs and are embraced by a major political party, they get a lot of attention. Here's the rub: their craziness turns away those who do not already agree ...

That Stimulus is So Freaking Awesome it Has Created or Saved Jobs in Congressional Districts That Don't Even Exist!
Hit & Run — From ABC News: Here's a stimulus success story: In Arizona's 9th Congressional District, 30 jobs have been saved or created with just $761,420 in federal stimulus spending. At least that's what the website set ...

Stimulus Funds Creating Nonexistant Jobs in Nonexistant Locations
True North - Pointing Minnesota in the Right Direction — ... never know it without going on line to the new and improved federal government stimulus tracking website, but the economy and jobs picture is really picking up in Minnesota’s 57th congressional district.  There in plain sight, it states that 35 jobs have been saved or created as a result of $404,340 in stimulus spending, according to the figures found by the Freedom Foundation of Minnesota on the federal government's stimulus tracking website on the summary page for Minnesota at recovery.gov. Over in Minnesota ’s 27th congressional district, ...

Time to Get Ready that WI-55 Primary
Lakeshore Laments — Don't believe me? Neither did I at first until I read this report by ABC News . Here's a stimulus success story: In Arizona's 9th Congressional District, 30 jobs have been saved or created with just $761,420 in federal stimulus spending . At least that's what the website set up by the Obama Administration to track the $ 787 billion stimulus says. There's one problem , though: There is no 9th Congressional District in Arizona; the state has only eight Congressional Districts. There's no 86th Congressional District in Arizona either, but the ...

Now THIS is Transparency!
what if? — I'm a huge believer in as much transparency as possible in government.  (Defense and intelligence are areas where it is tough.)  Still - this is a bit too much transparency, doncha think?! Here's a stimulus success story: In Arizona's 9th ...

Dave Obey Chides Obama Administration For 'Stupid Mistakes' On Stimulus Reporting
Politics on HuffingtonPost.com — A powerful House Democrat used unusually harsh terms to blast the Obama administration's manipulation of stimulus data Monday night, and demanded an honest accounting of results from the $787 billion government program. Rep. Dave Obey (D-Wis.), who chairs the House Appropriations Committee, took the administration to task for pervasive errors on the Web site designed to monitor disbursement of the stimulus funds. He called those errors "outrageous." "Credibility counts in government and stupid mistakes like this undermine it. We've got too many serious problems in this country to let ...

ABC TRACKING PORKULUS MONEY AND FINDING FEW JOBS AND BIG A MESS
THE ASTUTE BLOGGERS — ABC NEWS: For example, recovery.gov says $34 million in stimulus money has been spent in Arizona's 86th congressional district in a project for the Navajo Housing authority, which is actually located in the 1st congressional districtThe reporting problems are not limited to Arizona, ABC News found. In Oklahoma, recovery.gov lists more than $19 million in spending -- and 15 jobs created -- in yet more congressional districts that don't exist. In Iowa, it shows $10.6 million spent – and 39 jobs ...

Stimulus “Created Or Saved” Jobs In Places That Don’t Exist
Right Soup — That’s right. The government stimulus-tracking website recovery.gov is touting jobs “saved or created” in congressional districts that do not exist. Worse? Millions of dollars reportedly went to these phantom places. Where’s the money? Recovery.gov says that Arizona’s 15th congressional district created 30 jobs with $761,420 in federal stimulus spending. There is no 15th congressional district in Arizona; the state has only eight districts. In Oklahoma $19 million in spending created only 15 jobs in yet more congressional districts that don’t exist. ...

Is making things up human error or is lying
Commonsense & Wonder — Exclusive: Jobs 'Saved or Created' in Congressional Districts That Don't Exist Human Error Blamed for Crediting New Stimulus Jobs to Nonexistent Places By JONATHAN KARL Nov. 16, 2009— Here's a stimulus success story: In Arizona's 15th congressional district, 30 jobs have been saved or created with just $761,420 in federal stimulus spending. At least that's what the Web site set up by the Obama administration to track the $787 billion stimulus says. There's one problem, though: There is no 15th congressional district in Arizona; the state has ...

Meredith Jessup: RE: Stimulus Created Jobs, Spent Money in Non-Existent Districts
Townhall.com Blog's TownHall Blog — To follow-up on the story we helped to break yesterday, more and more media outlets are picking-up on fraudulent jobs and stimulus funds being reported on Recovery.gov . After many of my fellow conservative bloggers took to the Web yesterday and spread news about jobs being reported in non-existent congressional districts, ABC News reported, giving it national attention. Yesterday I posted about jobs and funds that were falsely being reported in Missouri. After more research, ABC's finding the problem is much more widespread : For example, recovery.gov says $34 million in ...

Impressive accountability from the Obama administration
MNpublius.com — Before I get too far, let me admit that there are bound to be a number of inaccuracies in the jobs data posted at recovery.gov. Collecting real-time data on the impact of the stimulus, particularly when you are asking recipients to help with the reporting, is tricky business. I’m impressed, though, by the Obama administration’s efforts to clean up the data and keep its count as accurate as possible. Frankly, we’d never have seen an article like this during the Bush administration: The Obama administration, under fire for inflating job growth from the $787 ...

Recovery.gov Fail: $1.1 Million Per Stimulus Job in Jeffco May Be Low
Peoples Press Collective — Earlier this month I did a little research on the Obama administration’s multimillion-dollar Recovery.gov website and found that one Jefferson County, Colorado, job was created for every $1.1 million spent. And now we find that dollar figure in fact may be low! Why? Among other reasons, $6.4 billion of stimulus money has been spent in phantom Congressional districts — including, as Mike Robinson points out at Rocky Mountain Right, on Colorado’s imaginary 64th Congressional district. Because it comes from the government’s own website, and ...

Recovery.gov Shows Taxpayer Money Going to Congressional Districts That Don’t Exist
CNSNews.com Headlines — (CNSNews.com) The 86 th congressional district of Rhode Island received $10.2 million in federal economic stimulus funds to save 57.9 jobs, according to Recovery.gov. In neighboring Connecticut, the state s 42 nd congressional district did not receive any stimulus money yet 25 jobs were still saved or created. The problem with these federal financial data, however, is that Rhode Island has just two congressional districts, not 86, and Connecticut has just five U.S. House seats, not 42. Also, the Web site states that $6.4 billion in stimulus money went to 440 congressional districts that do not exist, ...

Still more “jobs created or saved” lies and errors
Peoples Press Collective — After the Associated Press broke the left-leaning media’s cone of silence about the Administration errors and/or lies regarding jobs “created or saved” with so-called “stimulus” money, other would-be journalists and even Democratic politicians have found a bit of courage and are castigating the reported statistics. On Monday, ABC News reported more than $100 million in spending and hundreds of “jobs created” in congressional districts which do not exist, both in the US and in territories such as the U.S. Virgin Islands. Investors Business ...

The problem with Recovery.gov isn't the data, it is the politics
The Next Right — The White House has gotten a black eye for two key problems with the Recovery.gov stimulus database. The first problem was that the numbers of jobs were bogus. The Washington Examiner has concluded that at least 10% of the jobs were fabrications. The second problem was that the data about congressional districts were clearly garbage. But I am not here to rehash this. There is a legitimate problem with the data. But the data wouldn't be such a big deal if the White House hadn't tried to politicize the data and claim victory. Recovery.gov is a tremendous success for the ...

Where is District 45?
The Palmetto Scoop — OBAMA ADMINISTRATION SAYS $40 MILLION IN STIMULUS CASH HAS CREATED 155 JOBS… IN FAKE CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICTS What began Wednesday as a radio gimmick on Keven Cohen’s WVOC-AM radio show has turned into a full-fledged campaign by the South Carolina Republican Party to expose the federal government’s lies about the number of jobs created by federal stimulus funds. Cohen began his show by informing listeners that he had made an important decision: He was running for Congress from South Carolina’s 45th District. Throughout the show, officials like ...

ProPublica: Are Criticisms of Recovery.gov data Fair?
Politics on HuffingtonPost.com — By Jennifer LaFleur and Michael Grabell, ProPublica Stimulus critics were abuzz this week flogging the federal Web site Recovery.gov for flaws in its first big data release. Problems ranged from confusing variation and gaps in job numbers to mistakes that put projects in nonexistent congressional districts to spending that never made it into the data. Even stimulus backers demanded fixes. Rep. David Obey, D-Wis., chairman of the House Committee on Appropriations and one of the chief architects of the nearly $800 billion stimulus package, demanded ...

House Wants Answers on Bogus Stimulus Data
Drudge Retort — Members of the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee will ask questions Thursday about faulty data on the Obama administration's Recovery.Gov web site. The site is fixing errors that appeared to show hundreds of millions of stimulus dollars were spent in nonexistent congressional districts, the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board said Wednesday.

WaPo Buries GAO Faulty Stimulus Jobs Story on Page A22; No Mention of Fake Congressional Districts
NewsBusters.org - Exposing Liberal Media Bias — In what could easily be labeled the understatement of the week and probably of the entire month of November, the Washington Post today headlined a page A22 story today "GAO warns stimulus jobs data could contain inaccuracies." The print story is accompanied by a screenshot of Recovery.gov, which the caption beneath it notes "is the government's stimulus-tracking Web site." Of course, the biggest inaccuracies recently observed on Recovery.gov are non-existent congressional districts purported to have been "saved or created" jobs thanks to stimulus pork sent ...

Nunnelee For Congress Release - Where are the jobs?
Yall Politics — Nunnelee For Congress Release - Where are the jobs? Tupelo, MS… Congressman Travis Childers voted for President Obama and Nancy Pelosi’s $787 billion stimulus package saying it would create 9000 jobs in the First Congressional District. Recently he claimed it’s ‘working.’ But the number of unemployed people in North Mississippi continues to climb with an unemployment rate of 10.2 percent. The government’s official website charged with tracking stimulus spending (http://www.recovery.gov) shows over $216 million being allocated to the First Congressional District with only 612 jobs being ...

The Recovery Debacle
Babalú Blog: an island on the net without a bearded dictator — The Recovery Debacle By Jose Reyes Please follow me closely but please hold your anger in as much as you can. I will give you a Play-by-Play or a Step-by-Step here, of how I approached or to make it more precise, how I personally broke this down. Well, my logical assessment of the ARRA (the American Recovery Reinvestment Act). My logical view, by no means, is not the only correct way to view this debacle, that's for sure. Anyone could disagree with me wholeheartedly. My view could be the complete opposite of yours but please, give me your view, let me know. This ...

Christian Coalition of America’s Washington Weekly Review
Political Byline — ... “…how many Americans does it take to make nine pairs of work boots? According to the White House’s recovery.gov site, an $890 shoe order for the Army Corps of Engineers, courtesy of the stimulus package, created nine new jobs at Moore’s Shoes & Services in Campbellsville, Kentucky…” ...

Eric Holder’s Motivation [Reader Post]
Flopping Aces — Attorney General Eric Holder is going to take 5 of the most dangerous terrorists from Guantanamo Bay Prison and try them in a criminal court in New York City. If memory serves, he claims that he talked over this decision with his wife and brother. Governor Paterson indicated, in his own protest, that he was aware of this possibly happening 6 months ago. We are given 3 basic reasons for this: (1) to show off our justice system to the world; (2) to bring these evil men to justice (although, I doubt that the Obama administration would ever use the word evil); and (3) to try these men in the shadow of the ...

Where Are The Fake "Stimulus" Jobs?
United Liberty - Free Market - Individual Liberty - Limited Government — The Democrats’ government-growth-disguised-as-Keynesian-“stimulus” bill has done anything but stimulate the economy.  Unemployment is at 10.2%, About 3 million jobs have been destroyed in the private sector since the bill became law, and as has been noted, fake jobs have been “created or saved” in places that don’t even exist.  We should be paying attention to where the so-called “created or saved” jobs are. Thanks to www.recovery.gov, it is possible to find where the dollars and jobs are by both Congressional district and by zip code.  I ...

Saved, Created, or Fake? -- By: Stephen Spruiell
Articles on National Review Online — Ed Pound sounded like a man besieged. For weeks, newspapers across the country had been finding exaggerations and errors in stimulus recipients’ estimates of how many jobs their government checks had created or saved. The latest blow to the administration’s credibility was a report that dozens of recipients had misidentified their congressional districts, leading to claims that jobs had been created or saved in places such as the nonexistent 45th district of Louisiana. Asked by the New Orleans Times Picayune how so many stimulus recipients could get something so basic so wrong, Pound -- ...

Blink and Miss Another 13,000 Jobs NOT Created or Saved -- By: Stephen Spruiell
The Corner on National Review Online — I have a couple of pieces on the stimulus up today. I'm writing as fast as I can, but with new reports coming out every day debunking the claims of jobs "created or saved," it's hard to keep up.  In its report to the federal government last month, the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation reported saving 18,229 correctional officer jobs since May by using the stimulus money to pay their salaries as the state struggled with a massive budget deficit. State Auditor Elaine Howle questioned the total. The department is planning about 5,000 layoffs, less than a ...

GOPers to Biden: Stop Using Stimulus Jobs Numbers
The Note — ABC News’ Matthew Jaffe and Rick Klein report: Amid the growing outcry about inaccuracies in the Obama administration’s claims of stimulus job growth, top Republican lawmakers today wrote to Vice President Joe Biden asking the administration to stop promoting jobs “saved or created” by the ...

House Republicans Ask Obama To Please Stop Using “Jobs Created Or Saved” Metric
Say Anything — You’d think this request would come from those fearless truth-tellers in the media who are oh-so-concerned about accuracy.  But regardless, the point is that there is no way to measure “jobs saved.”  It’s a phony metric intended to inflate Obama’s economic success press releases with nice-sounding numbers.   House Republicans asked the Obama administration to stop touting the number of jobs “saved or created” by the $787 billion economic stimulus law, citing widespread reports that the data are inaccurate. They requested a response from ...