Chief Stimulus Watchdog Disowns Administration’s Jobs “Saved or Created” Numbers
WASHINGTON. D.C. – Appearing before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform today at a hearing entitled: “Tracking the Money: How Recovery Act Recipients Account for their Use of Stimulus Dollars,” the Chairman of the Recovery Act Transparency and Accountability Board, Earl Devaney agreed with Ranking Member Darrell Issa’s (R-CA) statement that we do not have the “ability to calculate the full time jobs equivalent.”
Click HERE to View the Issa-Devaney Exchange
Transcript of Issa-Devaney Exchange:
Issa: “Mr. Devaney, Secretary LaHood said, ‘We know for a fact that Recovery Act investments have created or saved more than 640,000 direct jobs so far. These are real, identifiable jobs directly funded by the Act.’ Can you support that?”
Devaney: “I think, sir, it may be a fact that that’s what’s on my website, but that may not be the correct number.”
Issa: “To characterize, he may be a little overzealous in saying real, identifiable, direct and, in fact, it’s just a damn estimate, isn’t it.”
Devaney: “That’s what the recipients reported.”
Issa: “I was reminded, by the way, that when a fish hits a wall he says damn. That’s what we’re talking about here. So going through a couple of slides, the White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, on 10/30/2009, says, ‘The direct jobs in that is 640,329, referring to Recovery.gov.’ Same day, VP Biden’s chief economic adviser, ‘Those jobs accumulate to 650,000 jobs saved or created so far.’ Same day, VP Joe Biden, ‘When the data is posted later today, it will show that we have created or saved 640, 239 jobs from contracting authority with the federal government.’ Last slide, CNN Headline, “Stimulus Creates 640,000 jobs.’
Pull up the propaganda again.
Is there any reason when you don’t know what the number really is that it’s just an estimate that, in fact, there’s about 60,000 jobs you pulled off and you didn’t even pull off the 26,000 jobs the University of California says it claims, which would be ½ of its employees would be saved from this act and they don’t have a net new hiring so you had to save existing employees, half of them, isn’t that just propaganda, isn’t it either misleading or designed to serve a political agenda when, in fact, it can’t be substantiated. It is not true. It is either mislead or designed to say we’re doing a great job when, in fact, we don’t know?
Mr. Devaney, you’re the most honest man I know. Without a whole lot of in between, shouldn’t we be more conservative and say, ‘Look, this is what the reports are. We’re scrubbing it. This is a new system. It has its problems. We hope at least they’re reporting the dollars right and we have no idea whether those people have the ability to calculate the full time jobs equivalent but we’re going to get to the bottom of it. Wouldn’t that be a fairer way to put it?”
Devaney: “I like that statement.”
Issa: “Thank you Mr. Devaney.”
CNN’s Kate Bolduan Reports on Recovery.Gov Hearing