ABC NEWS, Nov 18, 2009
Stimulus grants: Why Was The White House Website Riddled With Errors? Officials tell ABC News so far, they found 700 mistaken Congressional districts out of more than 130,000 stimulus grants. On Monday night, ABC reported on errors found on the website set up by the White House to track the number of jobs created or saved by the economic stimulus program. The website was riddled with reports of jobs in places that didn't even exist. That report prompted anger on Capitol Hill, and defensiveness at the White House. On Tuesday night's broadcast, ABC's Chief Congressional Correspondent Jon Karl took another look at the stimulus confusion (link)
http://blogs.abcnews.com/theworldnewser/2009/11/why-was-white-house-website-riddled-with-errors.html
LINK---Jon Karl: White House Vows to Correct Stimulus Reports Officials Tell ABC News So Far, They Found 700 Mistaken Congressional Districts Out of More Than 130,000 Stimulus Grants
ABC NEWS' JONATHAN KARL, Chief Congressional Correspondent, REPORTS, Nov. 17, 2009
When it comes to stimulus spending, could the wheels of government bureaucracy be grinding too quickly for once? Responding to more inaccuracies discovered in the reporting of spending and job creation from the administration's economic stimulus plan, the top White House official charged with overseeing the program vowed today to go through the reports with a fine-toothed comb and to correct the mistakes.
The promise came after ABC News found that Recovery.gov, the government Web site created to track the expenditures, had many job creation and stimulus spending figures that were attributed to congressional districts that do not exist, or that were incorrectly identified.
"The first time out, we knew there were going to be problems," said Edward DeSeve, special advisor to the president on the stimulus bill. "We don't think there are a lot of them. There are less than 1 percent in terms of the recent concern about congressional districts of the overall reports. And we've got a good commitment from the recovery board to work with us to fix them."
Officials tell ABC News, so far, they have found 700 mistakenly credited congressional districts out of more than 130,000 stimulus grants. The White House's Web site claims that more than 640,000 jobs have already been saved and created by the " $787 billion stimulus program. The reports used to come up with that number are riddled with errors.
In addition to the jobs in non-existent congressional districts reported Monday by ABC News, in real congressional districts, there are also problems, lots of them.
Moore's Shoes in Campbellsville, Ky., claims nine jobs were created from an $890 grant for nine pairs of work boots for the Army Corps of Engineers. Head Start of Augusta, Ga., claimed 317 jobs with a $790,000 grant, but it was really just a one-time raise to its 317 employees.
Chris Whitley is a fiscal officer for Central Savannah River Area Economic Opportunity Authority, which administers the Head Start program in Augusta. He says it was the administration's stimulus help line that advised them to claim 317 jobs. "It wasn't illegal, immoral or unethical. And they told me to do it, so I did it," said Whitley.
The mistakes have prompted anger on Capitol Hill. Rep. David Obey, D-Wis., the powerful chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, was outraged that one sewer project in his district was listed as creating 100 jobs. The real number is five. When asked what he thought when he saw the mistakes in his district, Obey said, "I wanted to strangle somebody."
Obey is demanding the administration fix the mistakes. "Fix the problem, the blessed problem, so that we're getting accurate information. I don't care what people's bureaucratic niceties are, or how hard it is to do it. I mean, they've got to fix the problem, so the American people can understand what the realities are.
SOURCE http://abcnews.go.com/WN/white-house-stimulus-website-riddled-errors/story?id=9110298
REFERENCE Behind The Real Size of Obama's Wall Street Bailout (more like $14 trillion) Mother Jones | Dec. 21, 2009 / FR Posted January 04, 2010 by E. Pluribus Unum
A guide to the abbreviations, acronyms, and obscure programs that make up the $14 trillion federal bailout of Wall Street.
The price tag for the Wall Street bailout is often put at $700 billion—the size of the Troubled Assets Relief Program. But TARP is just the best known program in an array of more than 30 overseen by Treasury Department and Federal Reserve that have paid out or put aside money to bail out financial firms and inject money into the markets. To get a sense of the size of the real $14 trillion bailout, see our chart here. Below, a guide to the pieces of the puzzle:
Treasury Department bailout programs (controlled by Rahm Emanuel)
Money Market Mutual Fund: In September 2008, the Treasury announced that it would insure the holdings of publicly offered money market mutual funds. According to the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (SIGTARP), these guarantees could have potentially cost the federal government more than $3 trillion [PDF].
Public-Private Investment Fund: This joint Treasury-Federal Reserve program bought toxic assets from banks and brokerages—as much as $5 billion of assets per firm. According to SIGTARP, the government's potential exposure from the PPIF is between $500 million and $1 trillion [PDF].
TARP: As part of the Troubled Asset Relief Program, the Treasury has made loans to or investments more than 750 banks and financial institutions. $650 billion has been paid out (not including HAMP; see below). As of December 21, 2009, $117.5 billion of that has been repaid. Government-sponsored enterprise (GSE) stock purchase: The Treasury has bought $200 million in preferred stock from Fannie Mae and another $200 million from Freddie Mac [PDF] to show that they "will remain viable entities critical to the functioning of the housing and mortgage markets." GSE mortgage-backed securities purchase: Under the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008, the Treasury may buy mortgage-backed securities from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. According to SIGTARP, these purchases could cost as much as $314 billion [PDF].
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Federal Reserve bailout programs
Commercial Paper Funding Facility: With the support from the Treasury, the Fed established the CPFF in October 2008 to increase the availability of short-term debt (commercial paper) funding. Up to $1.8 trillion [PDF] was earmarked for the program.
Mortgage-backed securities purchase: In 2009, the Fed earmarked up to $1.25 trillion to buy investments based on home loans.
Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility: TALF provides financing to investors who are buying asset-backed securities. In February 2009, the Fed and Treasury announced an expansion of the program to generate up to $1 trillion in new lending.
Foreign Central Bank Currency Liquidity Swaps: The Fed has provided $755 billion [PDF] for currency liquidity swaps with foreign central banks.
--SNIP--- long read
