Posted by Tina
The Democrats came to power promising transparency. (Are your eyebrows raised?) The Democrat government has promised to be the most ethical ever. (Are you beginning to smirk?) A government website, set up to allow citizens to track stimulus grant money doesn’t track the money thoroughly (You’re in full blown smirk now, right?) It cost US tax payers $18 million just to set up the website (All for show) For all we know, stimulus money is chasing Democrat fundraisers down the proverbial rabbit hole…but don’t bother asking Alice. The example shows how much progressives love the layers (lawyers?) of bureaucracy!
The Denver Post has all of the details; I’ll post some examples:
“New website can’t track paths of federal stimulus grants,” by Miles Moffeit – The Denver Post
…the U.S. Justice Department sent a criminal-justice grant to the state of Colorado, which in turn awarded $75,662 to the city of Denver, which in turn will contract with a nonprofit called Project PAVE to carry out the work. Under existing rules, only the payment passing to the state and to Denver, along with the identity of Project PAVE, must be reported. The sum paid to Project PAVE and subsequent dollars passed along to other vendors or employees, along with their identities, will not be posted. ** Stimulus expenditures under $25,000. – If the state Department of Transportation were to award $24,999 to an engineer to help oversee a project, the identity of the engineer as well as the specific sum do not have to be publicly reported. ** Costs borne by nonfederal agencies in administering stimulus dollars. – Gov. Bill Ritter’s controversial $40,000 payment to his former law firm to help advise the state’s stimulus-oversight board does not have to be posted on the website because the Recovery Act doesn’t require reporting of administration costs. Those expenses include consultant fees, according to the governor’s office.