Get Ready For A Shock...

Stimulus job boost in state exaggerated, review finds

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’s finding is based on the federal government’s just-released accounts of stimulus spending at the end of October. It lists the nearly $4 billion in stimulus awards made to an array of Massachusetts government agencies, universities, hospitals, private businesses, and nonprofit organizations, and notes how many jobs each created or saved.

"Wildly exaggerated". Go figure. And all of these wildly exaggerated claims got reported to the 0bama administration, which took them as gospel and ran with them, including:

• Bridgewater State College, which is listed as using $77,181 in stimulus money for 160 full-time work-study jobs for students.
• Boston Land Co., which reported retaining 26 jobs with $2.7 million in rental subsidies for its affordable housing developments in Waltham.
• The community action agency based in Greenfield reported 90 full-time jobs associated with the $245,000 it got for its preschool Head Start program.
• The Greater Lawrence Family Health Center reported 30 construction jobs “have been created,’’ even though it hadn’t begun construction on a $1.5 million renovation and expansion.
• City of Waltham said a $630,500 solar panel installation on the roof of City Hall created 10 jobs - even though the work had yet to begin.
• Revere spent $485,500 in stimulus funds to install solar panels on the roof of a city school. Revere’s job count? 64.
• 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.

Don't you love it? All of these figures went into the "billions and billions" of jobs "created or saved" that the 0bama administration was touting as a result of the stimulus. Flawed data in = flawed conclusion. And let's face it: There's one of two possible forces at work here: Malice, or gross stupidity.

Unless you think that it was mere coincidence that $77K resulted in 160 jobs...

That is all.