So
Recovery.gov, a government website created to track the progress of the Recovery Act—and, ahem, its $787 billion—is riddled with errors, which can be chalked up to sloppiness, ignorance, or super-secret government conspiracy. The choice is yours.
ABC news
reported on Monday that many of the site's created and saved jobs were listed in
nonexistent state districts. For example, the website said that $760,000 in stimulus buckage supported 30 jobs in the 15th congressional district of Arizona. Unfortunately, there isn't one.
(Arizona actually has
eight total districts, and yet another Recovery.gov entry reported $34 million had gone towards jobs in the state's
86th district.)
Officials from the website claimed that the mistakes were human error. As opposed to, um, fraud. Basically, the website reports whatever stimulus recipients tell them, without checking whether things like congressional districts are correct (or even existent).
The Associated Press
added that many jobs on the site are "overstated" or counted more than once, and that some temporary and part-time work has been tallied as full-time employment.
It's also worth noting that Recovery.org received a $18 million in grant money, according to ABC. That's a solid investment.
Now,
this sucks. It's embarrassing, and just another reason for people to rag on the stimulus, when really it's not even
related to the stimulus. I mean, hopefully not.
I found out about this story from
The Daily Beast (read
TDB, it's awesome), and a lot of the article's comments called Recovery.org's misinformation "lies," all the while disparaging Obama and his stimulus.
I mean, fair enough, but another commenter more on my wavelength
pointed out that the mistakes—which, again, come from user-submitted data—really say
nothing about the efficacy of the stimulus. We can't know how well the stimulus is working until we know the real numbers.
Anyway, it looks like Recovery.org is at least in the process of fixing its mistakes. Now, when you look up
Arizona, the site only lists eight congressional districts.
What are we dealing with here—errors or lies? Which is more important from the Obama administration, accountability/credibility or results?
Comments (3)
My state (Connecticut) had bogus districts too. I think it listed a 44th, an 82, and a 64, as well as a 00 district. I think we have 5. Somebody messed up, big time.
I think they were errors that someone was too lazy to fix for a while, because AFAIK those numbers were up for a while.
And for what it's worth, I don't think the stimulus is really doing anything either, at least not in my state. Yeah, it created over 7000 jobs, but my state has lost over a hundred thousand. I'm a college graduate and I can't even get an interview at Best Buy because there are SO many applicants it isn't even funny and I'm "overqualified", yet underqualified for anything else. It's maddening.
18 millions and you can't track the money spent and get a decent website?!? there are private companies out there that operate far more efficient with less than 3-5 millions.
well... glad it's working on fixing the problems...... i guess