“Stimulus” Oversight Implausible
The lamestream media told you:
President Obama has turned to his own vice president to oversee implementation of the $787 billion economic stimulus package. Obama also appointed Earl Devaney, the inspector general (IG) at the Interior Dept. and a one-time cop and former Secret Service agent, to serve as watchdog for the distribution of the funding. The president intends to make sure the funding goes where it is supposed to go. http://tinyurl.com/df7c76
Unreported by the lamestream but quoted at FederalTimes.com, Devaney said, “If I saw an IG coming down the hallway, I’d duck in the men’s room. I believed that no good conversation could be held with an IG. I felt that way until the day I became one,” he said with a chuckle. “Of course, I feel differently now. I try not to chase people into the bathroom, but quite frankly, they do go in.”
The Uninvited Ombudsman notes however that:
Most intelligent Americans have some trouble monitoring and balancing a single checkbook with less than five-figure money in it. It is incomprehensible that they could simultaneously manage 100 such checkbooks, yet this is the type of task we’re asking two government workers to do for us, except this example is way small.
Arizona, for instance, a large state with a small population (5 million) has 743 tasks ready for “stimulus” money. That’s 743 checkbooks, each one for millions not thousands of dollars, and it’s only one state. “Can you imagine the size of the staff, and cost, it would take to really watch that?” one observer asks. “It’s impossible,” he went on to say, “because there aren’t enough accountants in the nation, and there’s no plan, or money, to hire them with. Obama’s hired two people who already have jobs under him.”
Ten million dollars, a modest-sized project in government terms, would be equal to managing 1,000 household-sized bank accounts like the public is generally familiar with. Why Obama picked a cop and a politician to manage the money instead of accountants was unclear at press time. With some individual projects in the hundreds of millions or billions of dollars, the idea that “smaller” projects would get any oversight at all was unfathomable. “There aren’t enough jail cells in America to hold all the people who will get money leaking out of this plan,” one unidentified accountant said.
In a moment of unusual candor, the Obama cheerleading squad at the Washington Post observed that the package, “has raised serious questions about the ability of our federal government to fulfill its basic duties, and will require more than just the close scrutiny promised by the Obama administration.”
The scrutiny, you may recall, was promised live on TV by Obama hisself, not some faceless and unaccountable “administration” as the Post mistakenly reports, in an apparent attempt to provide cover for their American idol when the plan eventually explodes. The location (not accounting, but location) of hundreds of billions already given out to banks and car makers is unknown, but the recipients are back asking for more. Biden and Devaney could not be reached for comment.
Continuing, the Post says, “Hardly a day goes by without a headline disclosing the failure of a federal agency to carry out its mission because it is short-staffed, under-resourced and ill-equipped, or poorly managed. These are conditions that will inevitably worsen as the government is asked to dispense billions of dollars in stimulus money as quickly as possible.” http://tinyurl.com/c8tmrq
Responding to the government hubris and known ineptitude, we the people have rallied around StimulusWatch, a new wiki resource that will allow the public to do what government promises clearly cannot — watch each commitment of the giveaway plan. Be sure to turn up your lithium drip before looking at the site so you don’t pass out from the sheer size, then hone in on your state or your area of interest, and watch your money fly down the rabbit hole. http://www.stimuluswatch.org. No arrests are expected.
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