Shovel-ready and other fantastic tales
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) came out with their second report on the now 5-month old $787 billion stimulus package, and the headline is “pennies and lies”.
I might be a little fuzzy on the details, but I’m pretty sure President Obama didn’t promise 63% of the stimulus money to Medicaid and 13% to state budget stabilization. But that’s exactly how the spending has broken out so far:
63% to Medicaid
13% to State Fiscal Stabilization Fund
6% to Highways
5% to Other selected programs
13% to Other programs not in study
That’s all on top of projections that less than 25% of the stimulus money will get spent by year end. So much for shovel ready.
Regarding highway projects- the ones frequently touted as the big job-creators- as of June 25th, the Department of Transportation had obligated a mere $9.2 billion for projects and had reimbursed an even more minute $96.4 million.
$96.4 million sounds like a lot of money but to keep it in perspective, it’s only .012% of the total stimulus pot. That’s less than 1/8th of 1 percent.
Other cautions from the GAO report include a concern that auditing requirements in place don’t appropriately address the spending risk and that the federal website set up to monitor federal spending via non-federal entities uses unreliable data. So much for transparency and government accountability.
If you’re interested in reading the full GAO report, click here.
You’re welcome.
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