Jobs Saved by Stimulus...Inspector General says Total Lie, Like we didn't know.

Inspector general says 'jobs saved' numbers are nonsense
Totals 'should be offset by thousands destroyed'

Read more: Inspector general says 'jobs saved' numbers are nonsense [link to www.wnd.com]

Claims by the federal government that it used stimulus dollars to create and save millions of U.S. jobs are "misleading," cannot be confirmed and rely on methods that lack "transparency," according to reports from government watchdogs that WND obtained.

The first watchdog report takes on the Small Business Administration. According to the SBA's own inspector general's office, the SBA received $730 million under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act – commonly known as the stimulus act – and, like other federal agencies which also received part of the trillion-dollar Obama stimulus package, was required to report job retention and creation statistics. The agency reported the figures initially, on its web site, every month, but the inspector general audited those figures, casting doubt on their veracity.

"I have never been a fan of the SBA," Donald Mazzella, editorial director of Information Strategies, Inc., a New Jersey-based publisher of small business publications, tells WND. "I have long suspected the numbers."

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According to the SBA's inspector general, the SBA never defined what constitutes "jobs saved" for its programs, which provide grants and loan monies to small businesses and banks that deal with small businesses. Thus, SBA "lenders are generally reporting all existing jobs at the applicant's business as 'jobs retained,'" the report noted.

On the White House website, Obama administration officials estimate that during the last three months of 2010, they created 3.5 million jobs.

Their report says the government spends only $92,000 to create "1 job-year."

The inspector general's report was based on information provided by financial institutions on just 30 loans made by SBA programs during the first year of the Obama administration. Under the stimulus act, the SBA is required to report job creation and retention statistics in its monthly Recovery Act Program Performance Report, which is published online.

The SBA's two major loan programs are colloquially known as the 7(a) program and the 504 loan program. The inspector general reported that the loan programs' "lack of a definition for 'jobs retained' and the discrepancy in the forms used to collect job statistics from 7(a) borrowers and lenders has resulted in a performance metric with questionable clarity and transparency."

Read more: Inspector general says 'jobs saved' numbers are nonsense [link to www.wnd.com]