Earlier this week, we learned that Recovery.gov, the official Administration website charged with reporting abuse was its own worst offender.  It is full of fake stimulus jobs in fake Congressional districts.   It also shows that $3 million couldn’t even produce a single job in South Carolina’s fake 43rd district.  Somehow, $1.8 million was spent for 1.4 jobs in the fake 00 district.  This would be funny, but the money belongs to taxpayers, not the government.

Wednesday night, ABC News broke the news that the Government Accountability Office says that one out of every 10 jobs claimed to have been “saved or created” by the Administration came from projects where no stimulus funds had been spent. When asked about the inaccuracies, the spokesman for Recovery.gov replied, “Who knows, man, who really knows. There are 130,000 reports out there.”

After a week of reports on blatant inconsistencies in stimulus spending, and a hearing in the House Committee on Oversight and Government, this Administration still has not provided adequate answers as to the whereabouts of stimulus funds.  In response to this Administration’s insufficient communication on stimulus spending, I called for an examination of all stimulus dollars appropriated.

You see, the Recovery Act includes a provision that allows for the establishment of a Recovery Independent Advisory Panel (RIAP).  This panel consists of five presidentially appointed members to advise the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board on how it could prevent fraud, waste, and abuse relating to covered funds.  The President has yet to appoint this panel despite widespread stimulus inaccuracies.

On Thursday, I publicly called on the President to appoint this panel immediately. The Recovery Act is one of the largest spending bills in our nation’s history and it’s critical that we work together to maintain our goals of transparency and accountability.  If this panel is not appointed by December 1, 2009, I will call for an outside, independent examination of spending and reporting inaccuracies.

These actions will address short-term reporting problems. But we really should have our eyes on the horizon.  In the long term, we must continue to push this Administration and Speaker Pelosi to give this economy the economic jolt it needs.

Our plans like the Economic Recovery and Middle-Class Relief Act of 2009 (H.R. 407) unleashes the potential of American businesses, investors, and entrepreneurs.  We help stabilize home values and help more responsible families achieve the American dream of owning a home. Instead of continuing to skyrocket federal spending, our plan offers incentive-based relief to individuals and job creators.  It reduces the burden that the government places on both employers and employees and provides assistance to the unemployed.

I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to come together to demand immediate accountability for stimulus spending inaccuracies and in the long-term, work together on bipartisan job creation plans to get America rolling again.

Because it wasn’t painful enough to know that the “stimulus” money is heavily used to pay for the union-inflated salaries of thousands of bureaucrats in the states, or paying for jobs in phantom districts, or even better, going to recipients who happily spent it without creating any jobs, now we can see how much of the “stimulus” money is going to pay for picnic tables or to replace the motor of a government-owned boat.

For instance, I can see now that R. J. THOMAS MANUFACTURING COMPANY, INC received 4 different awards totaling roughly a $110,000 in exchange for picnic tables (because we know how stimulating these are)

Check out this website called Stimulus Watch. It allows you to search for contracts and grant awards by state and city, by awarding agency, or by recipient. And they will even have a keyword search soon. The really cool aspect of the site is that once you find an award that interests you, you can vote on whether you are satisfied with it or not, add to the wiki description of the project, and join in the conversation about the award in the comments section.

Oh and by the way, yesterday Earl Devaney, the guy in charge of overseeing economic stimulus spending, went public and said that the White House was too quick to take credit for saving or creating 640,000 jobs. My favorite quote:

[...] the downside of the unprecedented transparency is embarrassment, and there’s enough embarrassment over the accounting problems to go around.

Are you listening Vice President Biden?