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Press Release Published: Jul 9, 2010

Issa: New GAO Report Underscores Continuing Lack of So-Called Stimulus Transparency

WASHINGTON, DC – House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Ranking Member Darrell Issa issued the following statement on the release of a GAO report criticizing the chronic lack of transparency in how so-called stimulus funds are being spent and reported on stimulus-tracking website Recovery.gov.  The report found that the Obama Administration has already paid out $200 billion in stimulus grants, yet the GAO could not fully account for how nearly $150 billion has been spent:

“Since President Obama promised an ‘unprecedented oversight effort’ of so-called stimulus spending, report after report has instead found his Administration unable to issue clear reporting guidelines to grant recipients, unwilling to do the necessary work of tracking how each dollar is spent and all too ready to embrace fuzzy jobs created-or-saved math to cover up its failures.

“The GAO report found that a paltry one-in-four of stimulus recipients have reported coherent information about how they are spending our tax dollars.  This is yet another sad reminder that the $862 billion taxpayer-funded boondoggle hasn’t lived up to a single one of its sales pitches: that it would be chock full of ‘shovel-ready’ projects, that it would keep unemployment under eight percent, that it would save or create more than 4 million jobs by the end of 2010 and that it would allow for the transparent monitoring of how federal agencies are spending so-called stimulus funds.

“The American people have had to endure more than a year of serious stimulus oversight problems and naked White House stimulus propaganda.  I call upon the Obama Administration to quickly implement the GAO’s recommendations as a step towards the long-overdue transparency and accountability the American people deserve.”

Related Documents
Name Document
GAO Report