Understanding Government

Several new trains capable of considerably higher speed should begin plying the rails in California in about four years time, thanks to an infusion of federal cash, reports Tim Sheehan of The Fresno Bee.

California received 68 million dollars from the federal government to buy 15 new American passenger cars and four new U.S.-made locomotives for the state’s three regional rail routes. The funding is a portion of the $336 million worth of Recovery Act funding — economic stimulus money — awarded as federal matching funds to California and outright grants to Illinois, Iowa, Michigan, and Missouri. (more…)

Math and accounting errors have led several state agencies in California to exaggerate the number of jobs created or saved as the result of  federal stimulus funding.

A California State Bureau of Audits report found errors in figures submitted by five different state agencies totaling 617 phantom jobs, reports Deio de Brito of CaliforniaWatch.

It’s unclear from the story how many existing jobs were saved or new jobs created at the various agencies, though according to the story, the American Reinvestment and Reconstruction Act, known more commonly as the stimulus bill, created or saved a total of 54,000 jobs statewide. (more…)

At first glance, Louise Radnofsky’s report on the slow rollout of stimulus-funded weatherization jobs looks like a typical Wall Street Journal story, i.e., government can’t do anything right and labor unions are getting in the way of progress.  Radofsky writes that the $230 billion in stimulus funds was supposed to be “the most visible element of the job creation effort” — those energy sector jobs that everyone has been wondering about.  The weatherization program — with an extra $5 billion invested — was supposed to bring people jobs in the midst of the Great Recession.  But only seven states have managed to get more than 50% of targeted homes weatherized.  What’s the holdup?  Yes, there’s been too much bureaucracy and paperwork.  Yes, there’s micromanagement that makes government look bad. But there’s something else at work as well: accountability. (more…)

The California Inspector General’s office says a contractor hired to weatherize homes, and paid for by federal stimulus funds, overbilled the state agency overseeing the money by $34,803, Timothy Sandoval of CaliforniaWatch reports.

The report also notes that workers and supervisors performing weatherization renovations on homes have not been adequately trained, (more…)

Steven Rattner

Steven Rattner is hardly a disinterested party in gauging the effectiveness of the auto industry bailout that took place a year ago, but, writing in the Washington Post today, he may be right that the program worked.  The federal treasury and the American people stand to earn money on the GM bailout (we’re up $4 billion right now on our investment, according to Rattner) and even though the government owns so much of GM, it’s not being run by government officials, but by hard-driving corporate types who have begun bringing the word “profit” back into play, and cut GM’s expenses in North America by $8 billion this year.