RUSH: I have a couple of interesting stories here from state-controlled Associated Press: ‘An early progress report on President Barack Obama’s economic recovery plan overstates by thousands the number of jobs created or saved through the stimulus program, a mistake that White House officials 
promise will be corrected in future reports.’ A mistake? Biden said, ‘If we get this wrong, I’m dead.’ Remember him saying that? Joe, you haven’t gotten anything right since you went the plug route. ‘The government’s first accounting of jobs tied to the $787 billion stimulus program claimed more than 30,000 positions paid for with recovery money. But that figure is overstated by least 5,000 jobs, or one in six, according to an Associated Press review of a sample of stimulus contracts. … A company working with the Federal Communications Commission reported that stimulus money paid for 4,231 jobs, when about 1,000 were produced.
‘A Georgia community college reported creating 280 jobs with recovery money, but none was created from stimulus spending. A Florida child care center said its stimulus money saved 129 jobs but used the money on raises for existing employees.’ Now, you do that on Wall Street and you get a pay czar firing bullets at you and taking away 90% of your income. ‘There’s no evidence the White House sought to inflate job –‘ oh, really? Well, let me tell you something, AP. We don’t need no stinking evidence. We know they’re a pack of thieves and liars in the first place. It’s going to happen with health care, too. This is just a microcosm of what’s coming. By the way, what was the big deal about 30,000 jobs saved or created in the first place when we have 10% unemployment, and we’re going to tout that we saved or created 30,000 jobs? What was the big hurray in the first place for? ‘If there’s an error that was made, let’s get it fixed,’ said Ed DeSeve, an Obama advisor helping to oversee the stimulus program. ‘If there’s an error that was made, let’s get it fixed.’ It is fraud; it is lying; it is not an error.
Here’s another AP story on the same thing: ‘Stimulus Jobs Overstated by Thousands,’ by Brett Blackledge and Matt Apuzzo. ‘A Colorado company said it created 4,231 jobs with the help of President Barack Obama’s economic recovery plan. The real number: fewer than 1,000. A child care center in Florida said it saved 129 jobs with the help of stimulus money. Instead it gave pay raises to existing employees. Elsewhere in the US some jobs credited to the stimulus program were counted two, three, four, even more times.’ That’s an error? That’s an error? And these are the people — it’s a nightmare! This is a freaking nightmare. I can’t wait ’til I wake up and find out it’s all been a nightmare. ‘The government’s overstated by thousands the number of jobs it’s created or saved with federal contracts under this –‘ blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. ‘It’s not clear just how far off the 30,000 claim was.’ The AP’s State-Controlled review, ‘which was not an exhausting accounting of 9,000 contracts –‘ blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, ‘– honed in on the most obvious cases of jobs wrongly tied to the stimulus because of duplications or misinterpretations of how the jobs should be counted.’
You know, you can’t even count a job saved anyway. There’s no earthly intelligent way to count a job saved. How many jobs am I saving simply by working every day? I haven’t fired anybody, that’s true, and hardly anybody ever leaves. All right. Now, here’s a question: If the Obama administration will lie with such impunity about all this, what else will they lie about? Mind you, let me read this again. ‘It’s not clear just how far off the 30,000 claim was. The AP’s review, which was not an exhaustive accounting of all 9,000 contracts reported by the government so far, honed in on the most obvious cases of jobs wrongly tied to the stimulus because of duplications or misinterpretations of how the jobs should be counted.’ If you don’t understand that and you’re in Rio Linda, don’t worry about it, I’m not even going to try. By the way, look at the kind of jobs the stimulus money went to. One thousand jobs in call centers fielding questions about television converter boxes; twenty-five jobs helping people to make the conversion to digital TV; money for raises for 129 people at a child care center.
Indeed, there was only one job mentioned that sounded anything at all like the promised infrastructure improvements, and that’s the 125 jobs created to lay railroad tracks that is mentioned in this story. But it does seem appropriate that the Obama official overseeing all this is named DeSeve. It’s spelled D-e, capital S-e-v-e, which to me sounds a lot like ‘deceive,’ as in fool you. (interruption) If I had a trillion bucks, how many jobs do you think I could create? The real number is 787 billion. It really was a trillion ’cause they needed $250 billion in pork and earmarks. If I had a trillion dollars, how many jobs could I create? Two. I’d pay myself all but a hundred thousand of it, and hire an assistant. (laughing) The staff is shocked. It’s a good question. How many jobs could I create or could you, if you had a trillion dollars, and they’re out there touting 30,000. And now we learn that that’s fraudulent. It was overstated. Folks, I rarely am rendered speechless, and at those moments when I am rendered speechless it is only because I am on the verge of profanity.