It isn’t often that I get to compliment the mainstream media for doing something right but Abc News’ Jonathan Karl gets props for his report Monday night on the bogus stimulus jobs listed on the administration’s website www.recovery.gov.

• Arizona “created” 30 jobs at a cost of $761,420 in the 15th Congressional district. 
• $34 million spent in Arizona’s 86th district.   There are only 8 districts in the state.
• Connecticut”created” 25 jobs at zero cost in the 42nd district.  It doesn’t exist.

The same goes for jobs in other states and U.S. territories where jobs are listed in non-existent districts.

Karl reported that the administration “chalks it up to human error, ” and that “the mistakes were most likely made by grant recipients who filled out their forms incorrectly and may not have even known what congressional district they live in.”  Despite these glaring errors the administration told Karl that the overall jobs numbers are still accurate.

Granted filling out government paperwork can be very difficult but even so using the Arizona example each of the 30 jobs was “created” at a cost of $25,380. No telling how many jobs were created with the $34 million the other bogus district. 

One interesting note about the jobs number on the recovery.gov website is that they are calculated in fractional amounts like .04 or .12 etc…  That seems an awfully bizarre method to calculate jobs for real people.

On Tuesday Karl reported on spending in real congressional districts and here are some of his findings;

• 9 jobs “created” in Campbellsville, Ky for $890 to make 9 pairs of boots for the Army Corps of Engineers
• 317 jobs in Augusta, Ga for $790,000 for a one-time pay raise for Headstart employees

When questioned by Karl, Chris Whitley the Fiscal Officer for Headstart said the recovery.gov’s helpline told him to claim the raises as jobs.

If I’d known the government was allowing the money to be used for raises I could have applied a and “created” another 8 jobs.

This is just another example of why the stimulus was a bad idea to begin with despite the White House claiming exactly the opposite.

This isn’t Karl’s first foray into questionable government spending.  Back in April he uncovered the cost of keeping the John Murth airport open even though it has few if any passengers.

While Karl has done a good job in this issue and the Murtha airport they are too few and far between considering the waste and fraud that exists in our government.

We need more investigative reporting by the media not less.

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