The government's fiscal watchdogs have identified more than $5.8
billion in problematic stimulus spending, a figure that dwarfs the
election-year statistics the Obama administration is using to tout the
integrity of the president's signature economic recovery program, a Washington Guardian review of investigative reports has found.
The problems uncovered in hundreds of federal audits and investigations range from estimated millions in Agriculture Department funds for the rural poor that went to pay for prohibited homes with swimming pools to millions more that went to construction firms that did shoddy weatherization work or were later barred from government contracting because of criminal activities.
The Veterans Affair's Department's chief watchdog, for instance, says the agency can't demonstrate the $50 million it spent to refurbish cemetery monuments or memorials was justified. The Energy Department admits it wasted $7 million unnecessarily on golden parachutes to temporary stimulus workers it hired, then laid off. And the Labor Department inspector general says that agency spent $31 million more for a building than was necessary. None of those amounts are counted in the figures used this fall by the administration on the campaign trail.
The tally calculated by the Washington Guardian so far accounts for about 2.4 percent of the $243.6 billion in President Obama's $830 billion stimulus program that went to direct spending, such as grants and loans. The figure is expected rise as the inspectors general at the 29 federal agencies that got funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act pursue more than 1,900 open criminal investigations and hundreds more audits.
Read more: http://www.washingtonguardian.com/stimulus-math-redux
The problems uncovered in hundreds of federal audits and investigations range from estimated millions in Agriculture Department funds for the rural poor that went to pay for prohibited homes with swimming pools to millions more that went to construction firms that did shoddy weatherization work or were later barred from government contracting because of criminal activities.
The Veterans Affair's Department's chief watchdog, for instance, says the agency can't demonstrate the $50 million it spent to refurbish cemetery monuments or memorials was justified. The Energy Department admits it wasted $7 million unnecessarily on golden parachutes to temporary stimulus workers it hired, then laid off. And the Labor Department inspector general says that agency spent $31 million more for a building than was necessary. None of those amounts are counted in the figures used this fall by the administration on the campaign trail.
The tally calculated by the Washington Guardian so far accounts for about 2.4 percent of the $243.6 billion in President Obama's $830 billion stimulus program that went to direct spending, such as grants and loans. The figure is expected rise as the inspectors general at the 29 federal agencies that got funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act pursue more than 1,900 open criminal investigations and hundreds more audits.
Read more: http://www.washingtonguardian.com/stimulus-math-redux
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