I Smell a RAT
Posted on November 17, 2009
I Smell A RATThe Obama Administration is making some unbelievable unforced errors when it comes to the key concerns of the American people.
Perhaps the top concern is jobs. The White House staff has been slow to realize that job creation would be so critical to its own job security. They haven’t focused much on it rhetorically, their stimulus has failed to create many, and their other legislative efforts – Cap and Trade and the Health care bill – are job killers.
It has gotten so bad that they can’t even add up with any credibility the jobs they say were created by the stimulus package.
It is without a bit of irony that the agency created to count the jobs is called the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board. The RAT board is tasked with counting where the jobs are, but even the liberal (and very partisan) Democratic lawmaker David Obey smells a rat when it comes to their calculations.
Here is what Obey had to say about the wrong numbers coming from the RAT board: “Credibility counts in government and stupid mistakes like this undermine it. We've got too many serious problems in this country to let that happen," Obey said in a statement. “Whether the numbers are good news or bad news, I want the honest numbers and I want them now.”
Why is Obey embarrassed about the RAT calculations?
Well, here is one example. The RAT reported that fifty jobs were created or saved when stimulus money went to pay for a cemetery’s $1000 lawn mover.
According to ABC News, The RAT also claimed that jobs were created in a Arizona’s 15th Congressional. Only problem with that is that there are only 8 Congressional districts in Arizona: “Here's a stimulus success story: In Arizona's 15th congressional district, 30 jobs have been saved or created with just $761,420 in federal stimulus spending. At least that's what the Web site set up by the Obama administration to track the $787 billion stimulus says. There's one problem, though: There is no 15th congressional district in Arizona; the state has only eight districts. And ABC News has found many more entries for projects like this in places that are incorrectly identified.
Late Monday, officials with the Recovery Board created to track the stimulus spending, said the mistakes in crediting nonexistent congressional districts were caused by human error. "We report what the recipients submit to us," said Ed Pound, Communications Director for the Board.”
Sure, they do. I smell a RAT. When David Obey says that the Obama Administration is losing credibility when it comes to jobs, you know that this Democratic White House is in serious trouble.