Don't trust the internet--especially not dot gov

"Forget everything bad you’ve ever heard about President Barack Obama’s $787 economic stimulus. Combing through the data on the $18 million Recovery.gov website you’ll find tons of Obama stimulus success stories from across the country. In Minnesota’s 57th Congressional District, 35 jobs have been saved or created using $404,340 in stimulus funds. In New Mexico’s 22nd Congressional District, 25 jobs have been saved or created using $61,000 in stimulus cash. And in Arizona’s fighting 15th Congressional District, 30 jobs have been saved or created with just $761,420 in federal stimulus spending.

The it-would-be-funny-if-it-weren’t-our-tax-dollars-at-stake punch line here is that none of the above Congressional Districts actually exist." Morning Bell, Heritage Foundation.

and this one. . . Watchdog.org

"The government’s Web site that is supposed to tell taxpayers how their stimulus dollars are being spent, and which spends $84 million per year to do so, shows that $6.4 billion of the stimulus has been spent in 440 congressional districts that don’t exist [there are only 435 to begin with], according to a report by the Franklin Center, as reported by Watchdog.org.

The site, Recovery.gov, reports, for instance, that North Dakota’s 99th Congressional District has received $2 million in stimulus funding. But North Dakota has only one congressional district. The nation’s capital now contains 35 congressional districts, according to Recovery.gov."

And these guys want to take over health care.

Michigan got a bunch of new districts. . . According to Watchdog.org, the federal recovery Web site operates on an $84 million budget. One would think such hefty price tag would ensure more accurate reporting. Instead, it says nearly $6.4 billion was used to "create or save" fewer than 30,000 jobs in these 440 "phantom" congressional districts. That's almost $225,000 per job.

My first Social Security check

Some of you will be deciding what to do with the $250 "stimulus check." I suspect mine will have to be given back, so I haven't cashed it. Although today I heard that someone who had only been in the country 7 months in the 1930s and had been dead for years had gotten the $250 stimulus (I wonder if he voted in 2008 election). At least I'm alive. But I don't qualify for SS because I have a teacher's pension. It's called an "offset." Now it's possible that they couldn't figure out how not to give it to me, because only teachers and a few others get hit with this "double dipping" pension charge--God knows, it doesn't affect Congress or auto workers' pensions. Technically, I'm on their books as the spousal benefit of my husband's SS, it's just that STRS cancels it out--unless maybe Obama is feeling generous, and he hasn't figured out how to micromanage enough computers to toss me completely out of the system. Sigh. I do know this. That if I cash it, and 3 years later he wants it back because I wasn't supposed to get it, I'll owe $3,967.87 interest on that $250.

It's really unfortunate that in this high tech world you can't just pick up the phone and call some one.