Your gov’t hard at work, sending stimulus money to non-existent zip codes

Gotta love it (via Memeorandum):

First it was phantom Congressional districts. Now it’s phantom zip codes.

Last month, we reported on federal stimulus money credited with creating jobs in nonexistent New Mexico Congressional districts. Further examination of the most recent report on the recipients and uses of New Mexico’s share of the $787 billion stimulus shows jobs created and money going to zip codes that do not exist.

New Mexico Watchdog broke what became a national news story, and fodder for Jon Stewart and Steve Colbert. The website launched by the Obama Administration to track the destinations of billions of dollars of stimulus funds under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act showed billions going to nonexistent Congressional districts. The website, recovery.gov, reported $26.5 million going to ten New Mexico Congressional districts that do not exist. Those millions were credited with creating 61.5 jobs. Spadework by our Watchdog counterparts in other states showed a total of $6.4 billion reported as being allocated to 440 nonexistent, or “phantom,” Congressional districts.

The agency charged with tracking the stimulus funds, the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board, attempted to eliminate this embarrassment by lumping all the billions reported going to nonexistent Congressional districts into a new category called the “unassigned” Congressional district.

Closer examination of the latest recovery.gov report for New Mexico shows hundreds of thousands of dollars sent to and credited with creating jobs in zip codes that do not exist in New Mexico or anywhere else. Moreover, funds reported as being spent in New Mexico were given zip codes corresponding to areas in Washington and Oregon.

What’s next? The government taking credit for jobs that were “created” but in reality weren’t? Oh wait, that’s already happened. Or claiming they’ve “saved” certain jobs when in reality some of those jobs were safe to begin with? That’s already happened, too.

Jim Hoft asks:

Wasn’t Joe Biden tapped to be the stimulus czar?

Yep. And he was supposed to bring so much “experience” to the O’Biden ticket.

Heckuva job, Mr. Vice President.

Flashback/Related:

• 7/3/09 – Mere Rhetoric: WH Funneling Stimulus Money To Competitive Rural Districts