Recovery.gov: Transparency of Farce?

Lovely. Right? Transparency = a web page. Sorry to burst your bubble, Mr. President, but charts and graphs indicating how the money from your American Recovery and Reinvestment Act is being distributed does nothing for actual accountability.


According to recovery.gov $81 billion is going to "Protecting the Vulnerable." Who wouldn't want that? Cold hearted, anti-American folks? Maybe, but maybe those of us that have no idea who this money helps protect. Old people are vulnerable, but so are prisoners and the LGBT community and Iraqis. Is the $81 billion going to help protect all these vulnerable people? Maybe it should, but recovery.gov isn't providing a transparent account of whether it will.

Further more, the $111 billion allocated for "Infrastructure and Science," or any of the other broad and overarching categories, neither provides an exact breakdown of funds nor specifies the individual departments, contractors or organizations that will receive the bailout money. Isn't that the level of transparency we need at this point? Especially after we've seen so many institutions misuse their bailout money -- for parties, executive bonuses, private jets (like the one you used to fly to Chicago on Valentine's Day with Michelle. Too good for the D.C. restaurants or just too indifferent to the costs your romantic dinner levied on tax payers?).

$825 Billion Economic Stimulus

California's cut of the proposed $825 Billion Economic Stimulus nears eight billion dollars, $7,854,800,000 to be exact. That breaks down to $213.70 per capita. While no state will receive more money overall, if the current package passes, than California, Alaska ($221.71), Mississippi ($214.23), Louisiana ($214.23) and North Dakota ($216.56) will receive more money per capita.

The current stimulus plan requires that $121.26 per capita, of the federal funds must be spent on transportation and infrastructure projects, with $66.11 allotted for school and college modernization, and $13.82, per capita, reserved for job training, according to The Wall Street Journal's recent report.

If California receives $7,854,800,000 from the stimulus plan and $213.70 of that money is allocated per state resident, that means it has a population of approximately 36,756,200, which is fairly close to the estimate for the state's 2008 population. But after adding up the $121.26 for infrastructure spending, the $66.11 for education modernization and the $13.82 for job training the state finds itself with only $12.51 left to spend.

Clearly spending on infrastructure will generate jobs and stimulate the economy in the short run, but in the long run education and job training are the better investment. Why build more roads, when far less people will be traveling to work?