The reports are continuing on the woeful effects of the Obama job stimulus program, heralded as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The $789 Billion package was to create or “save” 3 million jobs but here’s the thing.

You know how your spouse says she or he just “saved money” when they bought something on sale … but you can never really find or see those “savings”? That’s the same logic the Administration uses to claim it’s “saved jobs” as they seek to defend the success of the stimulus package.

Not only is job creation meager, but the costs are staggering. The White House’s Recovery Act site – shows, for example, that $660 million has been awarded to Bay Area transportation projects to create 997 jobs, which amounts to a staggering $661,986 per job. Last week, the site showed that California Congressional Districts 00 and 99 received millions of dollars in stimulus funding even though neither district exists. If you click the link, you’ll see further evidence of the incomplete and inaccurate information about job creation.

Moreover, the Dept of Corrections in California has reportedly overstated the jobs created by 13,000 according to State Auditor, Elaine Howle. How? By counting jobs that weren’t in jeopardy of being lost in the first place!

Many, including me, have said since its inception that the stimulus package was too little and too protracted to produce the needed results. What we need are more programs like “Cash for Clunkers” which created a direct line of sight between the costs and benefits. With trickle down dollars from the federal bureaucracy, the results are hard to find, slow to arrive and mind-boggling in their serpentine slithering through the economy.