Recovery.gov – A Monument to Silly Wasteful Stupid Government Spending

BECKLEY — Out of the 130,362 silly dots on President Obama’s silly map which represent 158 BILLION in spending Obama takes claim for potentially creating or saving 640,000+ jobs.   This is almost as many jobs as were lost in August.   So, 158 billion and Obama has maybe slowed things for one full month!   Those are expensive jobs at $246k a pop and you know what as Obama’s goofy site points out those jobs are only saved for now.  What happens when the stimulus funds go away.   Those jobs will probably go away which is why these “one time” funds will have to continue into the future.  Meaning in plain speak this is 158 billion in annual entitlement increases and not stimulus funds.

Why will it have to go on? Simply why would the government want to be responsible for letting those 640,000 plus people go? The only way these jobs are actually saved is if these spending programs continue forever.

I know part of the “one-time” temporary grants that businesses have received from this ARRA funding keeps these businesses from laying some people off.  I’ve literally read through 1,000s of pages of OMB regulations, ARRA reporting requirements, and much more.   This will eventually end.  Then those people might be laid off.   Until then as directed by the ARRA grants businesses use those funds to pay the people whom those businesses would have had to learn how to operate without due to the decline in revenue from the recession.  Once those funds cease those jobs cease simple economics.  Unless their is a great economic boom.  In which case those people would have been hired back.  Although, they may have been hired back in more efficient positions.  Either way the funds cause either no effect or a decline in efficiency (the later of course being much worse).  I know I’d keep an eye on who I had originally thought to lay off and once the funding ended I’d lay them off anyways out of principle to make the business more efficient then if the extra funds were their I’d do cost-benefit analysis to use the extra funds to start something with a higher ROI.  It’s the same for businesses with construction or facility grants if not even more so.  Businesses won’t continue to build facilities and expand IT infrastructure once businesses spend those grants.  The companies that businesses pay money to for facilities and IT infrastructure know as well that the business with the grant won’t continue that spending into the future.  If they’re smart they’ll only hire temporary staff or just operate more efficiently to avoid adding any more capital costs until the ARRA money dries up.  Kind of stupid to try to pretend that that money (the 158 billion) is really saving those jobs or really creating that many jobs.  But that of course is the height of arrogance and again the only way to maintain that is to keep them employed by continuing their funding.

Take for example the 12.5 million being spent on water system upgrades that potentially creates 100 jobs.  First has any company actually hired 100 people or any number of companies hired 100 people? Nope.  The ARRA work will require them to report the people employed in that work.  The may pull people off other projects and perhaps they may even hire some construction workers to do some work.  Have they done it yet? Are they even hiring? Well, Schumacher Engineering isn’t hiring on their website!   Doli Construction Company doesn’t have a website but nothing on the internet says they’re advertising their.  Maybe their local papers have all those hiring adds!!! But I doubt it.   Hazleton Site Contractors do list jobs that people can apply for (it seems like they list every single job under the sun) but they admit that “All Jobs Might Not Be Available When You Apply”.   Like most contractors either the people they hire or move from one project over to this PA Water project will either be moved to another project after the PA Water project ends or they will be let go.  In which case either they would have eventually been hired without spending the 12 million or these 100 jobs were only temporarily saved at the cost of 12 million.  Pick your poison.

The same poison is available in this absurd Ohio weatherizing project.  Except we’re just talking $266 million and 1,000+ jobs.   Even the text description with it’s typo’s doesn’t make sense.  A $6,500 investment per home it says?!?! And this is estimated to save 24% in energy!!!  Do the math it doesn’t make sense.  What are these $44,000 a year income families using in energy to save 24% energy cost for a $6,500 investment.  If their energy bill was 10% of their income then they will save $1,056 (24% X $4,400) this is just over a 6 YEAR payback.  Jeez, put your money in energy companies and I could get you a quicker payback.   Ouch! Talk about waste, abuse, and fraud… Oh, and who get’s laid off due to the 24% reduction in energy spending or what energy company cuts dividends next year?

Not that it’s the companies faults they’re trying to be good stewards of the money given them by the government.  What can you say about them.  It’s the government’s fault to begin with and I’m not trying to scapegoat any one company.  I know the way these ARRA grants and contracts were given.  They required all the wording to be ambiguous and obscure  in order to get this money out really fast.  Nobody wanted to ask questions and delay the process all the various department directors killing themselves to send out 3x the grant awards (or more) then they are normally use to sending.  I just hope it’s not the companies trying to provide construction services, weatherizing services, etc. that pay the price.  Everybody bids on a project here or their and they get it and suddenly they have to report all this wacky data that doesn’t make sense.   Or the government says hey here is $160k you qualify for take it and tell us how many people you’ll keep employed.    It’s kind of like Santa Claus saying here are toys for Christmas now be a good little kid.  Ok, thanks!  And then Santa starts reporting how many people you hiring on the internet.  Ouch!

Anyways, one thing I did find as funny was how they report the number of awards given being something like 130,362; however, their pie chart on award progress is only tracking 56,986 awards.  I guess this is to skew the data as probably the remaining awards not listed are probably not started.

Also, another laugh factor is the bright red tab at the top of the homepage to report fraud, abuse, and waste.  I thought Obama was going to reign that in but it appears this isn’t the case as apparently their could be some serious fraud, abuse and waste here.  I’m laughing as I write this because the whole flipping thing is fraud.  Especially, the site the way it skews one data set so blatantly up front pretending that over 50% of the projects have even begun.  It pretends that these jobs reported on pieces of paper are actually real jobs created or saved.  Show me the pink slip that was given and signed by the employee.  Show me the contract hiring the new employee from the grant, contract, and/or loan funds.  Of course NONE of that exists meaning this whole site is a fraud.  Waste? Talk about the waste the government is committing on the American people printing money or borrow from China this wasteful $158,000,000,000.   By the way that is abuse to as those printed funds devalue our own dollars without our permission.  I never voted for this joke of a website or of a spending bill.  The arrogance to put that red tab to report Fraud, Waste, or Abuse for a program fraught with lies and pork barrel spending.

Recovery.gov, if the government even keeps the website up will stand as a monument to waste, abuse and fraud.  Thank you congress, thank you senators, thank you president, and thank you American people for supporting my monthly comedic visit to Recovery.gov with your tax dollars.   It’s like watching the skate boarder miss his landing and ring his most private area on the railing 158 billion times.  Oh, on a 18 million dollar website where the data could have been found elsewhere for free.  Ha ha ha!