A "new consensus" has emerged on the success of the economic stimulus package, according to a New York Times headline. In touting the supposed success of the legislation, and hinting at support for another round of spending, the Times neglected to mention the widespread fraud that characterizes the administration's attempt at shoring up the economy.
As reported by P.J. Gladnick on Saturday, the Times made sure to attribute its claims to "dispassionate analysts," and asserted that the stimulus is "helping an economy in free fall a year ago to grow again and shed fewer jobs than it otherwise would." Gladnick thoroughly debunked this claim, and others, in his NB post.
In a further show of bias, the Times article makes no mention of the 76,779 jobs that were not actually "saved or created" by the package, but were added to the number touted by the administration (interactive map embedded below the fold - h/t Examiner's Freddoso, Spiering, and Hemingway). Given that this number is roughly 12 percent of the 640,000 jobs the administration claims to have "saved or created," it might merit a mention in the Times's story.
Furthermore, according to the Examiner,
Today's report from ABC News tells us that prior to releasing its jobs report, the administration cut out 60,000 additional jobs from unreliable reports, none of which appear to overlap with the ones we've highlighted here. Had those jobs been included in the original count, the number of jobs "created or saved" by the stimulus would have exceeded 700,000, and the number of imaginary or doubtful jobs would have approached 20 percent.
The Times article also neglects to mention recent reports that the stimulus "created or saved" jobs in nonexistent congressional districts. As reported by CNN on Friday,
A report released Wednesday by the Franklin Center for Government & Public Integrity said it found such errors on pages for all 50 states, four territories and the District of Columbia. More than $6.4 billion in stimulus funds were shown as being spent -- and more than 28,420 jobs saved or created -- in 440 false districts, it said.
Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., ranking member on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, has called for an official investigation into these false claims. Even the Democratic Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, Rep. David Obey, Wis., said the false claims are "outrageous and the administration owes itself, the Congress and every American a commitment to work night and day to correct the ludicrous mistakes."
Even given the bipartisan uproar over these false "saved or created" claims, the Times did not see fit to mention the fraud that appears rampant throughout the stimulus package and administration reports on its supposed success. That it shilled for another stimulus without even mentioning the serious problems with the one we already have demonstrates the Times's willingness to toe the liberal line on the economy.
