NYC Letter: Trust Team Barry, Part I

Day 94 of CHOPE

We cannot overstate the importance of this effort. We are asking the American people to trust their government with an unprecedented level of funding to address the economic emergency. In return, we must prove to them that their dollars are being invested in initiatives and strategies that make a difference in their communities and across the country. Following through on our commitments for accountability and openness will create a foundation upon which we can build as we continue to tackle the economic crisis and the many other challenges facing our nation.

Rahm Emanuel, Chief of Staff, and
Peter R. Orszag, Director, Office of Management and Budget
PREPARING FOR IMPLEMENTATION
OF THE PENDING RECOVERY LEGISLATION:
MEMORANDUM FOR THE HEADS OF DEPARTMENTS
AND AGENCIES, p.2
February 9, 2009 (recovery.gov)

Let us imagine a shopper. Our shopper is at the supermarket for her weekly buy. She is on a budget and carries an envelope stuffed with clipped coupons. She has planned ahead and made a list of necessaries and opportunity purchases based on attractive pricing. She methodically travels the aisles, nonperishables first, perishables last. Typically it takes forty-five minutes for her to complete her shopping. She arrives at the cash register with most, if not all, the items she intended to buy. The cashier rings up the purchases, discounts the coupons, and our shopper pays an amount within her budget expectations.

Let us imagine our shopper again at the supermarket. She has just won a shopping spree. She has ten minutes to gather free of charge as many items as she can place in her cart. But all the aisles have been rearranged. When a bell randomly rings she must announce what she is putting in her cart. Ten minutes later our shopper arrives at the cash register. In her cart are 23 gourmet TV dinners but no milk, 8 frozen pizzas but no bread, 11 liters of premium bottled water but no eggs, 4 half gallons of ice cream but no lettuce, 36 jars of extra hot salsa but no chips, along with items she has no idea about: cassava, ponzu, lime chutney, pomelo, etc. She has spent five times her weekly budget but has few of the necessaries.

The first imagining represents the responsible spend of state government. The second imagining is state government spending stimulus money.

Stimulus money needs to be spent to stimulate. Consequently a stimulus program is targeted to where there is a need. Not so Mr. Obama's stimulus package. Mr. Obama's stimulus package appropriated gobs of money without any specific addressable needs. It is money looking to be spent somewhere. Spending to spend. It isn't stimulating much because it is taking too long to find state and local government needs.

Oh.

In the rush to spend, nobody thought to fund local oversight. [Pause.] Uh-oh. So much for creating that foundation of trust and confidence.

GOVERNMENT WATCHDOGS WARN OF
LACK OF OVERSIGHT FOR TRILLIONS IN
PRESIDENT'S NEW SPENDING PROGRAMS

April 23, 2009 (ABC News) - The Government Accountability Office today issued a report on the $787 billion stimulus bill called "RECOVERY ACT: As Initial Implementation Unfolds in States and Localities, Continued Attention to Accountability Issues Is Essential."

The GAO study asserts that officials from most of the states surveyed "expressed concerns regarding the lack of Recovery Act funding provided for accountability and oversight. Due to fiscal constraints, many states reported significant declines in the number of oversight staff -- limiting their ability to ensure proper implementation and management of Recovery Act funds."

Team Barry brays accountability and brays oversight but forgets to fund it. Brilliant. Obviously Mr. Obama thinks Joe "Hi-Q" Biden is all the oversight needed.

...the American people are watching. They need this plan to work. And they expect to see their money spent in its intended purpose. That's why we've created Recovery-dot-gov. A Website that every American can go online to see how their money is spent and hold their Federal, state, and local officials to the high standards that they [scil., the American people] expect.

President Obama,
announcing DIY oversight site
WASHINGTON February 23, 2009 (MSNBC)

Of course! Taxpayers can do their own oversight! They only need to "dial up" Mr. Obama's Website to see exactly how tax dollars are being spent. [We "dial" the Website.]

Hhmmm, there are no records of spending on the site. Instead stimulus monies are paid out for "investments". The single largest "investment" in every state we sampled is the State Fiscal Stabilization Fund. What this is the site does not say, but we imagine it is what elsewhere is called State and Local Fiscal Relief, monies which prevent "state and local cuts to health and education programs and state and local tax increases". "Investment" monies in lieu of state and local tax increases are budget subsidies. [Pause.] That isn't an "investment", it's a pass on fiscal prudence, on budgetary discipline. We could not find any detailed accounting of these massive "investments" anywhere on the site.

Also on the site can be found "investments" in IDEA Part B Grants to States, LUST Trust Fund Program, and CDBG State's Program and Non-Entitlement Grants in Hawaii. Nowhere on the site are these "investments" glossed. It's a good guess that these programs parcel out monies to various local authorities running their own programs. Alas, you cannot track the end-recipients of "investments" at Recovery-dot-com.

This is what all-important oversight by a community organizer looks like.

CHOPE.

Pious twaddle + Cool but largely useless Website = Oversight