Stimulus

The small town of Stanley, Va., figured on spending its nearly $40,000 share of federal stimulus funds to start replacing its aging fleet of four police cars.

But Stanley learned last summer that the federal government wouldn't release the town's stimulus money. The U.S. Department of Agriculture was worried that the town's plans to buy Dodge, Ford or Chevrolet police cars assembled in Canada could violate the "Buy American" provisions of the American Recovery and Investment Act, records show.

"The situation has put our town of Stanley in an extreme hardship trying to provide public safety to our community," Police Chief Tim Foster later wrote in letters to Congress....

WASHINGTON — More than $3.5 billion in economic stimulus funds are going to programs that President Obama wants to eliminate or trim in his new budget.

The president's budget released this month recommends getting rid of Army Corps of Engineers' drinking-water projects, which got $200 million in stimulus funds, and a U.S. Department of Agriculture flood-prevention program, which received $290 million from the stimulus, a USA TODAY review of stimulus spending reports show...

(CNSNews.com) – Republicans railed against the Obama administration last month when the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) predicted a $6 trillion dollar deficit over the next decade. But an analysis by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB), a taxpayer watchdog group, of President Obama’s proposed budget baseline for fiscal year 2011 points out it actually could spur more like $8.5 trillion in deficits.

Under the president’s budget proposal submitted to Congress, deficits would shrink slowly over much of the next decade, and then would start to grow again.

The deficit peaks at $1.56 trillion in FY 2010, constituting 10.6 percent of GDP); then is projected to drop to $1.27 trillion -- or 8.3 percent of GDP -- in FY 2011; $828 billion (5.1 percent of GDP) in FY 2012 and $727 billion (or 4.2 percent of GDP) in FY 2013. In FY 2016, the deficit begins to grow again in real terms, and as a share of GDP in FY 2019. By FY 2020, the deficit would top $1 trillion...

A congressional analyst says the findings of a new audit of the U.S. Census Bureau illustrate why the government cannot be trusted to stimulate the economy.

An audit performed by federal investigators finds that the U.S. Census Bureau wasted millions of dollars in preparation for the 2010 census. Thousands of temporary employees either picked up $300 checks without working one day or overbilled for travel costs. For example, 23 temporary census employees were paid for car mileage costs at 55 cents a mile, even though the number of miles they reported driving per hour exceeded the total number of hours they actually worked.

Brian Darling, director of Senate relations for The Heritage Foundation, says the waste, fraud, and abuse uncovered in the Census Bureau is another reminder that the federal government is not very good at running anything...

Billions of dollars in stimulus money is now going to programs that the administration plans to ax or cut down in its new budget, according to USA Today, which reported Wednesday that the total comes to more than $3.5 billion

Among the programs facing elimination or reduction are:

The Army Corps of Engineers' drinking-water project, which has received $200 million in the stimulus package.

The Department of Agriculture's flood-prevention program, the recipient of $290 million.

The Forest Service, which is getting $100 million less for maintenance and construction in national forests even though it received $650 million in stimulus money....

(CNSNews.com) – Though unemployment is at 9.7 percent, and just six percent of Americans think the government has created jobs, President Barack Obama will hold a White House reception on Wednesday to mark the one-year anniversary of signing the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, better known as the economic stimulus bill.

Meanwhile, administration officials, including Vice President Joe Biden and cabinet secretaries, will travel to 35 locations across the country this week to promote the $787 stimulus, which was designed to revive the economy – a reported $272 billion of the $787 billion has been spent since the bill became law in February 2009.

Administration officials have insisted that the legislation is on course to “save or create” 3 million jobs.  read more »

(CNSNews.com) – MSNBC news host Rachel Maddow corrected the record for misquoting Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) on her Feb. 9 broadcast -- when she incorrectly claimed that the senator had praised federal economic stimulus spending. But she apparently has misquoted the senator again and, as Inhofe’s office told CNSNews.com, “We appreciate that Rachel is a proud liberal defending the massive government spending bills now flowing out of Washington, but hope she will consider making another correction.”

Maddow, host of “The Rachel Maddow Show,” a political news and commentary program on MSNBC, said on Feb. 9, “Senator Jim Inhofe of denying global warming fame, he trashed the stimulus, voted no, and then praised its effect in his home state by saying it would help spur additional economic growth.” (The $787 billion economic stimulus bill became law in February 2009.)

But on Feb. 10 of this year, Maddow told her audience...

President Obama's preparing to meet new Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown face-to-face. The White House says it's only a matter of coordinating schedules.

But even before meeting Obama, Brown and the White House found themselves in a fight over the job-creating results of the stimulus faster than you can say "Tea Party" or "Recovery Act."

"The last stimulus bill didn't create one new job," Brown said at his first official Senate press conference.

Asked again if he really meant President Obama's $787 billion stimulus "didn't create one new job," Brown plowed ahead...

(CNSNews.com) – Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner admitted to the Senate Finance Committee Tuesday that the deficits the federal government will run in the foreseeable future are “alarmingly high,” but said the administration would still like to make some provisions of the stimulus bill permanent.

“There are limits to what the government can do now. Our deficits, as everybody says, are alarmingly high.  read more »

The White House sent a memo to federal agencies last month, announcing that it would no longer count a job as "saved or created" by the stimulus, but rather count the number of jobs "funded" by the stimulus.

That means any "stimulus" money used to cover payroll will be included in the jobs program, including pay raises for existing employees and pay for people who were never in jeopardy of losing their positions.

However, on Tuesday the White House Council of Economic Advisors claimed the stimulus created or saved 1.5 million to 2 million jobs last year.

Rea Hederman, a senior policy analyst at The Heritage Foundation, says the Obama administration is changing the rules of how it originally decided to count jobs as "saved" in an effort to make the stimulus "look better" and "save themself from future embarrassment." He notes many people were skeptical of the pPresident's earlier claim that the stimulus had saved 650,000-plus jobs...