Inflated claims of jobs created or saved - mainstream media discovers the truth about the lies

Some states seem to be providing cover for President Obama on the “jobs created or saved” front. Since late October, The Associated Press, the Boston Globe and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel have each published stories about inflated job figures produced by several states.

On October 29th the Associated Press said that “President Barack Obama's economic recovery program saved 935 jobs at the Southwest Georgia Community Action Council, an impressive success story for the stimulus plan. Trouble is, only 508 people work there.”

They also said that “About two-thirds of the 14,506 jobs claimed to be saved under one federal office, the Administration for Children and Families at Health and Human Services, actually weren't saved at all, according to a review of the latest data by The Associated Press. Instead, that figure includes more than 9,300 existing employees in hundreds of local agencies who received pay raises and benefits and whose jobs weren't saved.” Luis Rosero, an HHS [Health and Human Services] official defended the practice of counting raises as saved jobs saying that "If I give you a raise, it is going to save a portion of your job."

AP Continued “The latest stimulus report, significantly overstates the number of jobs spared with money from programs serving families and children, mostly the Head Start preschool program. The report shows hundreds of the programs used nearly $323 million to provide pay raises and other benefits to their existing employees… The raises themselves were appropriate — the stimulus law set aside money for Head Start salary increases — but converting that number into jobs proved difficult. The Obama administration told Head Start officials to consider a fraction of each employee as a job saved.”
Yes that’s correct – the Obama Administration told Head Start officials to count a fraction of each employee who received a raise as a job saved!

Yesterday, the Boston globe reported that Massachusetts hugely inflated figures showing jobs created by President Obama’s increasingly questionable $787 billion stimulus package. The Globe states that “While Massachusetts recipients of federal stimulus money collectively report 12,374 jobs saved or created, a Globe review shows that number is wildly exaggerated. Organizations that received stimulus money miscounted jobs, filed erroneous figures, or claimed jobs for work that has not yet started.”

The Globe continued “In other cases, federal money that recipients already receive annually - subsidies for affordable housing, for example - was reclassified this year as stimulus spending, and the existing jobs already supported by those programs were credited to stimulus spending. Some of these recipients said they did not even know the money they were getting was classified as stimulus funds until September, when federal officials told them they had to file reports… “There were no jobs created. It was just shuffling around of the funds,’’ said Susan Kelly, director of property management for Boston Land Co., which reported retaining 26 jobs with $2.7 million in rental subsidies for its affordable housing developments in Waltham. “It’s hard to figure out if you did the paperwork right. We never asked for this.’’

The Globe described further discrepancies by saying that “Massachusetts property owners received $75.5 million in rental subsidies … simply reported the number of employees working at the property. If they received two contracts, for a larger property, they reported the employee figure twice… For example, Plumley Village East in Worcester listed 23 jobs for each of its two contracts for a total of 46 jobs, even though it has only 23 employees working throughout the complex.”

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that “In one case, five jobs were mistakenly listed as 50 - and then counted twice. In another, pay raises to workers were listed as saving more than 100 jobs. And in another, jobs were listed as saved even though the money had not been received and no work on the project had begun.”

The Journal Sentinel also said “About $7.3 million of federal money will flow to the Parkland Sanitary District in Douglas County to replace its sewer system, a project listed as creating or saving 100 jobs even though work won't start until this spring, federal recovery data shows… But that number is inflated by 95 jobs, Parkland Sanitary District treasurer Eric Shaffer admitted.

When reporting to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's online reporting system, Schaffer meant to type "5" but mistakenly added a zero - and that 50-job figure appears twice in the federal data because it was a combined grant and loan. He tried to correct the error, but was told it was too late for the federal reporting deadline.”

The Journal Sentinel continued “Meanwhile, three other Wisconsin towns reported jobs on combined federal loans and grants that were counted twice, doubling their totals from 35 to 70 jobs, records show… United Migrant Opportunity Services based in Milwaukee reported saving 113 jobs through spending $18,000 of a Head Start preschool grant, or about $160 per job. The award provided their employees a 1.8% cost-of-living wage increase. The nonprofit provides services to migrant farm workers in Wisconsin and other states.”

It’s obvious that the numbers which the Obama Administration touts on a daily basis are inaccurate and inflated dramatically. The examples illustrated by these news outlets reflect only what they have discovered, which leaves one to wonder – can we believe anything that this administration says?
If we are to believe that the reports given by the Associated Press, the Boston Globe and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel are typical, then we must consider that the figures reported by the Whitehouse to national news networks are inflated by 50 percent and perhaps more.

Citizens are beginning to tire of the Obama rhetoric and if the administration did indeed tell reporting agencies to report a fraction of every job that received cost of living increases, etc., it’s understandable why. In addition, if the President’s most potent weapon is his ability to sway voters, a loss of perceived credibility would remove that weapon from his arsenal.

Now with the news that the administration plans to nationalize the mid-term elections, one must wonder, just how many fellow Democrats will flee from President Barack Obama if the American voters continue to lose faith in his truthfulness.