Find out where the stimulus money is going

               So how’s that stimulus working for you? I wish I had a dollar for every time I’ve heard that question this year. Okay, let’s answer it. Yes, the money is moving. And yes, I expected more results by now, too. But it will take a long time to fix an economy that was so deliberately and horribly neglected for eight years.

               All of the stimulus information is available online. The federal information is at recovery.gov.  Each federal agency website has a page showing what stimulus funds go through the agency and how the money is spent. Every state and county website has a similar section. Local sites include the information if the municipality received stimulus funding. You can look at the Pennsylvania, Allegheny County, and Pittsburgh sites too.

               Earl E. Devaney is chairman of the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board, which manages recovery.gov and oversees spending under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.  Of the $787 billion total package, $234.2 billion, or just about 30%, was spent by October 30.

               At the insistence of Congressional Republicans, Only $275 billion (35 percent) was allocated to projects that could create jobs directly. The rest is divided among tax cuts (37 percent) and entitlement programs (28 percent). Most of the money earmarked for tax cuts will be counted when we file our 2009 income tax returns, during the early part of 2010. The entitlement portion is being distributed gradually through social assistance programs such as unemployment compensation, food stamps, and welfare benefits.

               As usual, the Republicans are now griping that the stimulus isn’t creating enough jobs. It’s just another tiresome example of their obstruction and distraction campaign.  Once again, if tax cuts create jobs, then where are all the jobs that the $288 billion in tax cuts should have created?

               As of October 30, national stimulus funding created 640,329 jobs. Pennsylvania ranks 27^th in the nation, with 7,427 of those jobs. California is first with 110,185 and Wyoming is last with 860. Allegheny County expected to receive $377,305,933 from the federal government, but the county stimulus website hasn’t been updated since April. Why is that, Mr. Onorato? Pittsburgh’s site lists specific projects and their budgets, by city department.             

             As I said before,   the ripple effect from that funding will create or save more jobs than the stimulus itself. As nice as tax cuts are, the idea that they create jobs is a complete fallacy.  There’s no way to know how many jobs would have been lost without the stimulus. Of the 56,986 projects awarded stimulus funds nationwide, 93 percent are still in progress. That means that the money – and the paychecks – are still flowing.

               Recovery.gov is packed with information – too much for me to list everything here. You can see exactly where the projects are, how the money is spent, find a job, read the oversight reports from the General Accounting Office and Inspector General, and report fraud, waste, and abuse. You can see how much money was spent and how many jobs created throughout the US by zip code.