Yesterday, I wrote about Joe Biden’s outlandish statement that the stimulus bill was working better than he could possibly imagine. I just finished reading this article, which suggests that it isn’t working so well:

Hillcrest Rural Schools in north-central Kansas is set to get nearly $7,000 in federal stimulus money to help its disadvantaged students. Only one glitch: The district doesn’t exist anymore. It closed in 2006 when it was merged into another nearby district.

Hillcrest was one of nearly 14,000 school districts or local education agencies nationwide that the U.S. Department of Education reported would get stimulus funds under its Title I program.

Mr. Vice President, why would you say that the stimulus bill is working better than your wildest dreams when checks are being sent out to phantom school districts?

Didn’t President Obama put VP Biden in charge of monitoring the flow of ARRA dollars and to report back on the benefits that have happened as a result of the spending? In fact, he did. How did it go unnoticed that 14,000 non-existent “school districts or local education agencies nationwide” got stimulus checks? If that’s the Obama administration’s idea of a watchdog, they’re better off finding someone who actually cares about providing oversight. They’d be better off if they just hired ProPublica for the job:

In Kansas, 11 school districts that no longer exist are on the U.S. Department of Education’s distribution list for stimulus funds. They are set to receive nearly $600,000.

We found these school districts when Kirby Ross, managing editor of the Phillips County Review in Phillipsburg, Kan., alerted us that our county-by-county stimulus tracker [1] included two districts in his area that didn’t exist. That prompted us to do some more digging.

A little old blog can track this spending but Joe Biden, the man that “nobody messes with”, armed with a huge staff to track ARRA spending, can’t find it and prevent it?

Thinking about Biden’s failure to provide meaningful oversight on ARRA funds raises other questions. Why I should trust this administration to find $500,000,000,000 in Medicare wasteful spending when it can’t identify nonexistent school districts? Why should I think that they’re interested in being the public’s watchdog? Thus far, I haven’t seen anything they’ve done that proves that they’re interested in watching out for my wallet.

I’ve heard this administration talk about fiscal restraint. I can’t deny that. Still, I haven’t seen anything that can be viewed as proof that this administration is serious about getting spending under control. For that matter, I’ve seen nothing from the Democrats’ majorities that makes me think that they’ll look into where the money is being spent.

During the 2006 campaign, Democrats whined that the Republican congress hadn’t conducted proper oversight on the Bush administration. Democrats campaigned that they would conduct oversight hearings. I took that to mean that they’d conduct witch hunt after witch hunt on the Bush administration. Now that the shoe is on the other foot, this Democratic congress won’t look into where the money is being spent. I haven’t even heard of them asking for an inspector general’s investigation for stimulus funds.

This is what happens when people hear what they want to hear instead of doing real due diligence. It’s what happens when people accept a politician at their word without verifying if their actions match their actions. President Obama said all the right things during the campaign. Unfortunately for the American people, his words haven’t matched his actions. Unfortunately, Joe Biden’s words are worthless.

That’s all I need to not trust this administration.

Technnorati: Stimulus, Joe Biden, President Obama, Fraud, Corruption, Budget Forecast, Unemployment, Deficits, Democrats

Cross-posted at California Conservative