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Thursday, November 19, 2009

Obama's Website Recover.gov - Fake Districts and Fake Jobs

(CNN) -- Members of the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee will ask questions Thursday about faulty data on the Obama administration's Recovery.gov Web site.

The site is fixing errors that appeared to show hundreds of millions of stimulus dollars were spent in nonexistent congressional districts, the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board said Wednesday.

The errors, first reported by ABC News, were seen on Recovery.gov summary pages breaking down how many stimulus dollars were received in each state's congressional districts.

Arizona's page, for example, showed the state's 52nd, 15th and 86th congressional districts received hundreds of thousands of dollars in stimulus money, according to CNN affiliate KNXV. However, no such districts exist in Arizona, which has only eight congressional districts.

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 Washington, D.C. 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.

The districts didn't exist, but the the money and jobs did, Obama administration officials have said. And the people who are to blame are recipients who apparently didn't know which congressional district they were in, the officials said. - CNN Story

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