Stimulus Report Card: See How The Recovery Act Performed

The public will get a chance to see in detail how their stimulus money is being spent when data is released about the $787 billion stimulus package on the website Recovery.gov Thursday. The data will be from companies that received contracts from federal agencies. Later in the month, the website will release data from those receiving grants and loans.

The Washington Post notes that the data on job-creation will likely be "less than definitive." More background on the data from the Post.

The information released Thursday will cover just a sliver of the total stimulus spending, with details on $6 billion to $12 billion in contracts, according to the non-profit OMB Watch. The reports will be dominated by agencies that are spending their money through direct contracts, such as the Department of Energy, which is cleaning up nuclear-waste sites in Washington state and South Carolina, and the General Services Administration, which is renovating federal buildings.

A more representative sample about 10 times larger will be reported at the end of the month, including the contracts awarded by states and local governments, which received stimulus grants for such projects as highway infrastructure and home weatherization. "This is just the tip of the iceberg," OMB Watch Director Gary Bass said.

Comments

[Stock market]

01:31 PM on 10/16/2009

Unemployment still out of control and unfortunately we do not have anything that even
resembles a jobs plan from our wonderful leaders. Bailouts, tarp, health plans but no jobs.

hat tip to: http://tiny.cc/financenews

If this is change we can believe in, count me out in 2012

[ncmom54]

02:49 AM on 10/16/2009

Obviously the Banks didn't really need the level of assistance they received... they just have the resources and influence to lobby better than Main Street, who for decades believed the local Chamber of Commerce was their advocate. My how many lessons have we learned from this crisis.
What happened to 'from the bottom up'? Supporting Main Street & small employers would have kept payrolls active, mortgages paid, food on tables... money flowing through banks.

Main Street takes out 2nd mortgages to keep the shop open and employees paid...
Wall Street is a pampered Welfare Queen.

[Stock market]

02:09 PM on 10/15/2009

Everyday the middle class get g0uged through stealth inflation

hat tip to; http://bit.ly/1NkbAn

banks keep reporting blowout earnings while everyone muddles along

[bannorhill]

01:12 PM on 10/15/2009

So far it has performed very poorly.

The bill was projected to keep unemployment under 8%.

We are almost to 10% and still getting worse.

[graffitijoe]

09:12 PM on 10/15/2009

Obama projected 8% unemployment to get the stimulus passed. Now he projects 10%, does that mean it will end up at 12%. It already is here in SoCal (12.2%).

[rblaquinta]

01:03 PM on 10/15/2009

Can anyone imagine if Mccain/Palin would have gotten into office????? I would be to busy standing in line at the soap kitchens or begging for food then reading HP...because they would have said no to any kind of stimulus to help out the states, etc. They would have sent the world over the cliff not just the US. Thank god, the nightmare did not come true.

[RobAlb]

12:04 PM on 10/15/2009

Over here in Albuquerque I see lots of great stuff happening. Many infrastructure projects and improvements to services such as public transportation are among these improvements. All these things created and continue to create jobs for what is widely viewed as a poor state.

[roudy]

03:33 PM on 10/16/2009

This is also happening here locally. The funds are spend 100% on infrastructure, mainly improvements in water and sewer that will pay dividends for decades to come. And because contruction business has been so slow, the city and country are getting this work done at about 70% of cost for the same work three years ago.

Improvement of infrastructure while providing jobs, that is what all the stimulus funds should have been about. If we had used those trillions for these purposes rather than giving that money away to wall street, the unemployment rate would be dropping right now.

[Dennim]

11:43 AM on 10/15/2009

How are stimulus funds being used? Below are additional sites outlining stimulus funds being used in various areas.

Florida:http://www.dot.state.fl.us/planning/economicstimulus/

Georgia: http://stimulusaccountability.ga.gov/02/gov/stimulus/home/0,2804,134245182,00.html

Alabama: http://recovery.alabama.gov/

Mississippi: http://www.mississippi.org/index.php?id=667

Kansas: http://www.governor.ks.gov/recovery/

Indiana: http://www.in.gov/ifa/brownfields/2615.htm

[Dennim]

11:26 AM on 10/15/2009

The State of Oregon has a website at: http://www.oregon.gov/recovery/

The website tracks Recovery Act Funding.

Oregon is using stimulus funds in "areas such as health care, education, energy efficiency, public safety and infrastructure. The major funding sources are divided into nine major ARRA areas consisting of formula, competitve and demand-based funding."

Rep. John Boehner may not recognize stimulus funds but Ohio has a website http://www.recovery.ohio.gov/ addressing expenditure of stimulus funds.

Ohio has also posted info dated October 13, 2009 on the site relative to the thousands of jobs created or retained!

Here is the website for Texas: http://www.window.state.tx.us/recovery/transparency/tracking.php

South Carolina's website: http://www.stimulus.sc.gov/

Louisiana's website: http://www.stimulus.la.gov/

I'm guessing all the other States have similar websites one can view.

[leduck]

10:57 AM on 10/15/2009

the stimulus package means very little as long as world oil production remains on a plateau.
it's been on this plateau since 2005.

[harveyr2]

10:47 AM on 10/15/2009

This is wasted money. Remember when we were sold the largest spending bill in our history: $787,000,000,000 -- unemployment wouldn't go beyond 8%, now conventional wisdom says it will hit 10%. Obama, and his administration are as corrupt and incompetent as his predecessors.

Those who hoped for change are sorely disappointed and no longer as naive.

[texastrixie]

11:29 AM on 10/15/2009

Stimulus was not big enough to really stave off record unemployment. Unemployment came from the Bush economic meltdown, not the stimulus. Stimulus merely failed to counteract the downward spiral. Republicans may retake the Congress next year. They will immediately work to strip any economic bandages from the unemployed or impoverished. Aid to business will skyrocket, and the country will immediately sink into the depression that they will then blame on Obama (and the country will probably be stupid enough to buy this). The Republicans could easily throw this country into an unemployment rate of greater than 25%. Surely we will not be stupid enough to spend money once we have a fat-cat tax relief bill (like we did under Bush).

If the Republicans ever regain power again, we will see poverty and misery in this country greater than any nightmare. Think things are bad now - when the government is at least trying to keep people in their homes, and some food on the table - even if you are long-term unemployed? Just wait. We have 5 or 6 million people out of work. At least 20% of these people don't have any income except unemployment. Can you imagine a nation where over a million people have no place to live, no food to eat, and no medical care?

[bgofca]

12:21 PM on 10/15/2009

the job loss would've been much worse without Pres. Obamas ' plan. We are suffering because of the last 8 years of massive deregulation and the shipping of jobs out of the country, tax shelters and secret accounts and business offices off shore to avoid paying taxes, etc. The bush took the surplus that bill clinton left and then turned it into a mess. It will take a while for the country to recover from the republican damage. Pres. Obama can't just change everything with the blink of an eye. More could be accomplished if the republicans would honestly try to work towards helping out country instead of trying to block everything so that it will look like Obama is failing so they might have a better chance to win some elections in the future.

[Stock market]

10:43 AM on 10/15/2009

I haven't seen anything being done.
Where's the infrastructure projects,the green energy, the needed repairs,the projects to bring us into the 21st century?
But the War continues with no bang for the buck and all while Congress natters away endlessly.

good articles; http://bit.ly/1NkbAn

A person making 60,000 pays 20,000 of it in various taxes. A person making a million or more has a tax rate of 30% compared to 90% decades ago.

[bgofca]

12:22 PM on 10/15/2009

we recently drove through CA and OR and saw many projects from the recovery program. I'm sure there are some in your area, but like bohner, you turn a blind eye and just complain.

[roudy]

03:35 PM on 10/16/2009

I make 60,000 do not pay anywhere close to 20,000 in taxes. Your post is just foolish.

[iridium53]

10:37 AM on 10/15/2009

After all these months (since early February?) they finally got some money out there - six months.

Obama's government really knows how to demonstrate a sense of urgency and manage in a crisis, don't they?

When earthquakes destroyed California Bridges (yes, California, the State government that supposedly can't get anything done) had the bridges repaired in record time by cutting through the bureaucratic red tape.

With nearly 10% "officially" unemployed, and perhaps more than 20% under- and un- employed in the real economy, the best urgency the Obama Administration can show is six months to start showing action. Just to start. What an amazingly poor performance.

[totaldisbelief]

10:36 AM on 10/15/2009

I haven't seen anything being done.
Where's the infrastructure projects,the green energy, the needed repairs,the projects to bring us into the 21st century?
But the War continues with no bang for the buck and all while Congress natters away endlessly.

[MetalCanuck]

10:06 AM on 10/15/2009

The bankers got 90 percent of the stimulus..there is very little to report because they certainly will not be telling you what they did with the banks.

[oneanddone]

09:20 AM on 10/15/2009

We all know that the majority of the stimulus was nothing but payback for Democratic supporters. There will be no job growth thru next year. It will get very ugly for Democrats a year from now at the polls.

[roudy]

03:37 PM on 10/16/2009

Nah, the teabaggers will further splinter an already fragmented republican party, and democrats will win as as result. Not that they deserve to win, given their dismal results so far.