There is an old saying that "Figures don't lie, but liars can figure". It sure looks like that is where we are now. The administration says its recovery bill has created, or saved, 2.5 million jobs. So a reasonable question is "Where are those jobs?"
There are still 15 million Americans without jobs. The recent decline in national joblessness from 9.9% to 9.7% was caused solely by people giving up looking for work, hence not being counted as unemployed.
It is only fair to give credit where it is due, and the government has produced an excellent online source for tracking the stimulus bill. Take a look at www.recovery.gov.
You will find some very interesting ways in which your money is being spent. Take a look at the list of all projects in declining order of claimed jobs created. Then find Booz Allen Hamilton's project. Please let me know if you can figure out what we are paying them $59,944,116 to accomplish. I can't. But what I find interesting is that the top five officers at Booz Allen will receive salaries and bonuses of $2.5 million to $3 million. Good grief!! What can they be doing that is worth that much of our money. Almost 1/4 of the entire budget goes to pay those five people.
Or look at Farmland Foods and discover that we bought 2,663,800 lbs. of ham. Makes you wonder where they are going to store all of it, and when we are going to get our share of the ham.
And yes, you can find an asphalt resurfacing project on some road in Cleveland which almost certainly did create some jobs.
When you look at where the money went by department, you will find the largest part went to the Department of Education, so most likely the majority went to save teacher's jobs. Not a bad thing, but should they be counted as new jobs?
You will find spending some time at the recovery.gov site will be enlightening and confusing at the same time. Please let me know if you can find the 2.5 million jobs that Obama is in Ohio today touting. I can't.
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