From the Sacramento Bee
Little connection to jobless rates and federal stimulus funds
By Graydon Gordian, Kelsey Snell and Michael Beller
WASHINGTON – In February 2009, the United States had fallen into the deepest economic slowdown since the Great Depression. The housing bubble had burst, unemployment was nearing its highest level in almost three decades and the once-freewheeling banking sector had turned tightfisted.
At the urging of President Barack Obama, Congress passed an $862 billion economic stimulus bill on Feb. 10, 2009, to get federal dollars flowing into the U.S. economy....
For the most part, mainstream economists such as those at the Congressional Budget Office agree with those conclusions, but an examination by McClatchy and the Medill News Service has found that some parts of the country have benefited far more from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act than others have, that some sectors of the economy are benefiting far more than others are and that it's difficult to detail exactly where all the money has gone.
Among the findings:
... The Obama administration won't be able to fulfill its vow to track every stimulus dollar. The mechanism that's used to account for the expenditures is complicated, flawed and at times inaccurate.
"I know it's political rhetoric to say we have to know where every penny is spent," said Raymond Yee, a lecturer at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Information. "But it's difficult to even understand where every billion dollars is spent."