Oversight Committee Republicans Demand Clarification on the "Methodology" Behind Obama's Jobs Numbers
ByThis afternoon Republicans on the House Oversight Committee held a press conference to announce demands that the Obama Administration disclose how it is coming up with the controversial number of jobs “created or saved” by the stimulus package. As most of you know by now, this number wasn’t generated by the OMB or other federal government statistics or economic tracking groups.
The Republicans on the committee believe that Obama’s administration may have simply made up the numbers or invented some kind of formula with assumptions tailored to fit the desired conclusions. This probably seems obvious to most of our visitors, but even the uninitiated should find the root of the Republican’s demand to be justified. Regardless of whether you are for or against the growing state and the stimulus bill, there’s a good chance you don’t think lying or attempting to defraud with fake figures is behavior the nation can accept in a President.
For that reason, we cheer the minority members of the House Oversight Committee. There may be questions about separation of powers and the committee’s jurisdiction, but as a general observation their demand is beneficial both as a matter of politics and a matter of policy. First, as a matter of politics, Americans may not understand the difference between competing macroeconomic policies, but they do understand that lying is wrong and that it is not something that those who have the facts on their side need to do. Inquiring minds will want to know: Could it be true that Obama pushed a spending package to funnel hundreds of billions of dollars to trendy democratic causes and political supporters and then tried to cover up the lack of stimulus in the “stimulus” bill by making up fake job numbers? Simply lying to the congress and the country about the job numbers is a serious problem and will be perceived by many without PhDs as a President trying to manipulate in order to build support for continuing in a direction that isn’t working. Second, you can’t run any kind of organization including a government when you make decisions about policy by referencing numbers that aren’t accurate. Good government requires that Republicans discover how the administration is coming up with its figures in order to determine if it is incorrect in the quantitative basis for its strategy.
Here’s a link to the press release and other coverage of the press release.
Conservative and libertarian blogs and free media sources can and should assist by also calling on Obama to release the exact formula and date behind the jobs “created or saved” numbers for public review.
We just don’t have the time, but it’s this type of thing that makes us seriously consider an FOIA request to the White House.
Links to additional stories on the press conference / effort follow. Please post any additional links you find in the comments.
Deseret News: Chaffetz Doubts Job Creation Claims
