The Magically Appearing Stimulus Jobs

ABC News’ Rick Klein reports: We’ve long been wondering what taxpayers would get for their $18 million Website redesign at Recovery.gov.

ABC’s Jonathan Karl is reporting on one thing we never guessed might have been purchased: Jobs created in congressional districts that do not exist.

There’s Arizona’s 15th Congressional District, where 30 jobs have been saved or created with just $761,420 in federal stimulus spending, according to Recovery.gov.

Arizona only has eight House seats. So the $34 million that Recovery.gov tells us was spent in the state’s 86th district is equally incredible.

Another gem: More than $36 million in stimulus funds spent between the 69th and 99th districts of the Northern Mariana Islands — a self-governing US territory that gets only one (non-voting) representative in the House. (Did Jack Abramoff do a better lobbying job than anyone could have imagined?)

These figures seem more likely to be data-entry errors than evidence of fraud or corruption.

But for an administration that’s prided itself on scrupulous accounting surrounding everything connected to the stimulus, mistakes like these contribute to suspicions that counting jobs “saved or created” is more art than science.

And there’s more in that vein today: ABC’s Matthew Jaffe reports that the administration has been forced to slice 60,000 jobs from its most recent report on stimulus spending because of what officials deemed to be “unrealistic data” flowing in from stimulus recipients.

WH Official: Confidence in Stimulus Helps Economy; ‘We Certainly Notice’ That Dow’s at 10K

ABC News’ Rick Klein reports:

With a new report out this week touting job creation stemming from the stimulus package, Obama administration officials have fanned out to make the case that the $787 billion measure is doing its job.

That's no accident. On ABCNews.com's “Top Line” today, Jared Bernstein, the chief economic adviser to Vice President Joe Biden, told us that perceptions of the stimulus matter.

“Sure — I mean confidence in how the economy is performing both by businesses, families, consumers always makes a difference,” Bernstein said. “But I think the critical kind of kernel of truth in there is that of course the Recovery Act is very much working. We have saved or created about a million jobs thus far.”

“The Recovery Act has clearly helped both on the overall macro-economy side but also on the jobs side. Now that doesn't mean it has offset the massive jobs deficit that greeted us when we got here — by no means. And the president's acutely aware of that. But it is helping.”

Bernstein also said that administration officials pay attention to the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which hit 10,000 this week, though he cautioned that it's only one of many economic indicators of importance to the White House.

Asked if crossing the 10,000 threshold brings a “good feeling” to the White House, Bernstein responded:

“To some extent. The fact is I think the Dow has crisscrossed the 10,000 [mark] multiple times since it bottomed out back in 2007. But I think where your intuition is correct there is that we certainly notice when the market is on an upturning trend, and we appreciate that from the perspective of people who have investments.”

He continued: “Now, I'm not saying that's made up all of the losses by any stretch of the imagination. But we're very interested in the extent to which our interventions and those of the Fed have helped pull financial markets and the overall economy back from the brink. That's what's important there.”

Though Obama aides initially said that the stimulus would keep unemployment under 8 percent, it's now close to 10 percent. Bernstein and other administration officials say, however, that the job market would be much worse without the stimulus, and that the full extent of the economic crisis wasn't evident at the time they made their initial projections.

The report released this week found that 30,383 jobs have been directly created by money spent so far under the stimulus — a number Bernstein said “exceeds our expectations.” The numbers, he said, “point to the conclusion that the Recovery Act did indeed create or save about 1 million jobs in its first seven months.”

“I think you've got to put that [30,383 figure] context. Remember, this report covers $16 billion, OK? We're talking about a $787 billion package; we're talking about direct recipient reporting 30,000 private sector jobs on about 2 percent of the overall bill. And remember, it's just direct jobs — it doesn't count the indirect jobs that you get when people go out and spend that money,” Bernstein said.

“What those numbers suggest is that we are on track to do what we said we're doing through the Recovery Act, which is to help offset some of the very deep pain out there in the labor market,” he said.

Watch the full interview with Jared Bernstein, including a discussion of why the Obama administration wants to give an additional $250 to Social Security recipients this year, HERE.

We also debated the week's politics with Republican strategist Ron Bonjean and Democratic strategist Chris Kofinis.

One hot topic: Is Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev. — who launched a pair of new TV ads this week, 13 months before the election — in trouble?

Said Bonjean: “When you put up an ad this far away from the elections in 2010, it's a big signal that he's in a lot trouble. And you know frankly, the two Republican challengers right now [who] are in a primary, lead him in the polls. I think you could put a ham sandwich against Harry Reid right now and lead in the polls.”

Kofinis said Reid has to deal with the “conflicting goals” of leading Senate Democrats and seeking another Senate term, but he called it “laughable” and “ridiculous” to suggest that Reid's on the ropes.

As for the ads, “he's not going to have a problem with money, but I think it's also to basically make it less likely that the two challengers can raise money or seem as formidable,” Kofinis told us. “So it's kind of a smart thing to do. But it's a year out — I'm not going to worry about it.”

Watch the full discussion, touching on health care and the search for bipartisanship on Capitol Hill, HERE.

Republicans Compare Health Care To Stimulus, Say August Timeline Is Too Hasty

ABC News' Z. Byron Wolf reports: Democrats are starting to run up on timelines for health care reform and the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court. Republicans say they are being too hasty and warn that a health care bill will lead to unintended consequences.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.,told reporters again today that Senators will do their ?best? to confirm Sotomayor, pass a Senate version of health care reform and finish up the Pentagon policy bill they?re currently considering before they?re scheduled to leave for a month-long August recess. He dodged the question ofwhether this will require more work time in August.

Republicans, meanwhile, have taken to comparing the health care reform effort with the unpopular $775 billion stimulus bill that was passed hastily a month after President Obama took office, but has not stemmed the rise in unemployment.

?Here we are a few weeks before the recess, and you get the impression they're willing — they want to pass just anything they can as rapidly as they can. And the reason I was comparing that to the stimulus, we know that that at least so far is a failure. It, once again, was sold to us on the basis that we had to do it tomorrow in order to prevent catastrophe,? said Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.

?I think that's a flawed strategy,? he said. ?I think we ought to take our time and do it right,? McConnell told reporters on Capitol Hill Tuesday.

It?s possible — but not yet guaranteed –that the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee will pass its version of health care reform.

This would be the first fully baked stab presented by Democrats and modified by votes in a public process at the committee over the past several weeks. It has a controversial public health insurance option and a mandate for employers to either provide health care coverage or pay, and it will ultimately be melded with whatever is produced by the Senate Finance Committee to expand Medicaid and pay for health care.

The Finance Committee is nowhere near done with its version of health care reform. Another bipartisan meeting began behind closed doors late this afternoon.

McConnell also questioned the central sales pitch the Obama administration has used to pitch health care reform as a necessity– that reforming health care will ultimately save money.

?We're told on this that in part the reason for doing health care is that it will actually save money over the long term.Most of us are scratching our heads wondering how you can design a plan in order to try to cover the uninsured, bring more people into the coverage, and still save money.In fact, that won't happen,? he said.

Republicans Stepping up Anti-Stimulus Rhetoric

ABC News' Z. Byron Wolf reports:

Republicans on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee stood beside a large, orange “Road Work Ahead” sign draped with reflective road worker vests today to complain that the stimulus hasn’t worked in creating the jobs it was supposed to.

And they called on the Obama administration to work to address the $20 billion shortfall that threatens payments for non-stimulus road and infrastructure projects paid for through the highway trust fund.

“There's a new definition for dismal failure. Stimulus. This stimulus,” said Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, whose home state of Florida suffers from high unemployment.

The Congress people all suffer from high unemployment in their states and pointed to a GAO report released this week that shows many of the areas with the highest unemployment are receiving proportionally less stimulus money. In large part, this is due to the formula by which the funds have been dispersed.

“It’s absolutely shocking that after five months later continue to be mired in red tape. it takes far too long to get projects under way,” said Rep. John Mica, R-FL, who is the ranking Republican on the Transportation Committee.

“Michigan, with the highest unemployment in the nation, is 45th in the nation in our receipt of transportation dollars,” said Rep. Candace Miller, who said her district has the highest unemployment in the nation.

She said the Obama administration and Congress should change the rules for stimulus-funded projects to cut through red tape. They pointed to the quick response to the bridge collapse in Minneapolis, which took 437 days to rebuild, although Congress passed a special bill to authorize its contribution to that project.

“Cutting through all of this, we would have so many shovel ready programs,” said Miller of red tape that she said is snarling projects. “we would be really turning the dirt right now.”

They also faulted the Obama administration for its plan to ask Congress to authorize the borrowing of $20 billion to replenish the Department of Transportation’s highway trust fund, which faces a funding shortfall.

The Note: Buckeye Brawl — Ohio Hosts Latest Round in Stimulus Fight

By RICK KLEIN

Ready to come home yet?

While you’ve been out of the country, Mr. President, the critical political battle of the moment has raged on without you — unless, of course, we’re misreading it. (Or misspelling it?)

The fight is over the economy, more specifically jobs, and most specifically the stimulus package that passed with the promise of improving both of those outlooks.

With Vice President Joe Biden heading to Ohio Thursday, and later to New York State, the battle is joined — with the urgent calls for action in January turning into pleas for patience in July.

The pieces and the players are in place. Sagging unemployment figures. A trillion-dollar deficit. A stimulus that’s being defined by what it’s not doing (and, in a few questionable projects, by what it is doing) rather than by its accomplishments.

Both parties are geared up for this one: Republicans who sense a powerful issue, and Democrats who’ve become more aggressive in pushing back at them.

For this day — deliciously for the politics — it centers on Ohio.

It’s a Cincinnati backdrop — the American Can Building (pun alert!) — for the vice president Thursday, with a 10:15 am ET event (followed by a 2:30 pm ET event in Saratoga County, N.Y.)

At the Ohio stop: “The Factory Square development in Northside, which will turn a vacant factory into apartments and retail space, was suggested by the city for the vice president's stop because they say it is a good example of a how stimulus dollars can help rejuvenate a community,” per the Cincinnati Enquirer’s Jessica Brown. “Project developers Steve Bloomfield and Ken Schon of Cincinnati-based Boomfield/Schon+Partners will receive $1.6 million in Community Development Block Grant money through the federal American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.”

And yet: “It is unclear how many jobs will be created,” Brown writes.

The trip puts Biden “in the midst of a political showdown in Ohio over the effectiveness of the economic stimulus bill,” Jessica Wehrman writes in the Dayton Daily News. “Republicans, including House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-West Chester Twp., have grown increasingly critical of the bill’s effectiveness.”

(And Boehner, R-Ohio — now very much a part of this battle, with the DNC saying he was “caught lying about the success of the economic recovery package” — will fire back with an early afternoon conference call with reporters.)

Impatience: “It's been five months since the colossal $787 billion stimulus package was signed. With only about $56 billion of it having been distributed, there is growing concern that there is little economic payoff,” ABC’s Jake Tapper reported Thursday morning on “Good Morning America.”

“The [vice president’s] trip may show how sensitive the administration is to public dissatisfaction with the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act it pushed through Congress in February and to signs of voter unhappiness with Team Obama’s economic policies, especially in industrial states hardest hit by the recession,” Dave Cook writes in the Christian Science Monitor.

Another type of backdrop: “The U.S. budget deficit climbed to an estimated $1.1 trillion during the first nine months of the 2009 fiscal year, the U.S. Congressional Budget Office said on Wednesday,” Reuters’ JoAnn Allen reports.

The urgency (or not): “People know that problems of this seriousness cannot be turned around in six months or nine months,” Larry Summers tells The New York Times’ Edmund L. Andrews. (They do?)

Writes Andrews: “But political pressures may not give the administration two years to show that its plan is working, especially if Democrats in Congress begin to conclude that continued bad economic news is putting them at risk of losing seats in the 2010 midterm elections. Mr. Obama has bought time by casting the struggling economy as the legacy of President George W. Bush, but as time passes it increasingly becomes his problem and his party’s.”

About the backing (and a clue about the backdrop): “In a potentially alarming trend for the White House, independent voters are deserting President Barack Obama nationally and especially in key swing states, recent polls suggest,” Politico’s Ben Smith reports. “A source of the shift appears to be independent voters, who seem to be responding to Republican complaints of excessive spending and government control.”

(And what might it say that, suddenly, Republicans have become the party scoring recruiting coups, while the White House doesn’t even gets its favored candidate for the president’s old Senate seat?)

Fitting Karl Rove’s pattern: “The administration consistently pledges unrealistic results that it later distances itself from. It has gotten away with it because the media haven't asked many pointed questions. That may not last as the debate shifts to health care,” Rove writes in his Wall Street Journal column.

And a tough column from Joe Klein, in the new Time: “Obama may be blowing a major opportunity for reform with his domestic-policy diffidence. He came to office faced with an unprecedented economic crisis, and he focused on it successfully during his first 100 days, giving two excellent speeches about the need for a stimulus plan and general economic reform. He has lost that focus as his other initiatives have come online; he has failed to speak with precision or clarity about the bills wandering through Congress.”

A big voice for another stimulus: “I think that a second one may well be called for,” Warren Buffett told ABC’s Bianna Golodryga, on “GMA” Thursday. “You hope it doesn't get watered down in many ways. . . . Our first stimulus bill it seems to me was sort of like taking half a tablet of Viagra and having also a bunch of candy mixed in, you know, as if everybody was putting in enough for their own constituents.”

Gov. Ed Rendell, D-Pa.: “I would like to see a second stimulus devoted solely to infrastructure.”

At least it will be easier to see where the money’s going: “The General Services Administration sends word [late Wednesday] that $18 million in additional funds are being spent to redesign the Recovery.gov Web site,” per ABC News.

“Armed with easy access to this information, taxpayers can make government more accountable for its decisions,” James A. Williams, commissioner of GSA’s Federal Acquisition Service, said in announcing the contract awarded to Maryland-based Smartronix Inc.

Making the package easier to hate: “Counties that supported Obama last year have reaped twice as much money per person from the administration's $787 billion economic stimulus package as those that voted for his Republican rival, Sen. John McCain, a USA TODAY analysis of government disclosure and accounting records shows,” USA Today’s Brad Heath writes. “That money includes aid to repair military bases, improve public housing and help students pay for college.”

More digging in: “According to an analysis by The New York Times of 5,274 transportation projects approved so far — the most complete look yet at how states plan to spend their stimulus money — the 100 largest metropolitan areas are getting less than half the money from the biggest pot of transportation stimulus money,” The New York Times’ Michael Cooper and Griff Palmer report. “In many cases, they have lost a tug of war with state lawmakers that urban advocates say could hurt the nation’s economic engines.”

Wasn’t this about jobs, jobs? For the $3.3 billion “smart grid” program, “the Obama administration is now saying it will not take the potential for job creation into account in ‘rating’ proposed projects for possible funding — after initially saying that would be a primary consideration,” per The Note blog.

From a different bill, but equally fun to defend: “Sweeping healthcare legislation working its way through Congress is more than an effort to provide insurance to millions of Americans without coverage. Tucked within is a provision that could provide billions of dollars for walking paths, streetlights, jungle gyms, and even farmers’ markets,” The Boston Globe’s Michael Kranish reports. “The add-ons – characterized as part of a broad effort to improve the nation’s health ‘infrastructure’ — appear in House and Senate versions of the bill.”

While we’re at it: “The House of Representatives has written a $123.8 billion farm spending bill that's loaded with congressional earmarks,” McClatchy’s Michael Doyle reports. “Brushing off conservative criticism, lawmakers are steering funds toward California pest detection, wine grape research and ‘asparagus production technologies,’ among other targeted projects.”

From the air wars: The House Republican Conference is up with a new video focusing on President Obama’s claim that the stimulus “has done its job.” “Real solutions for a real recovery,” reads the tag.

Some good GOP feelings for a change: “Public anxiety over the economy, stocks in decline, rising unemployment and a string of expensive Democratic initiatives are all encouraging high-caliber Republicans to compete in 2010,” The Hill’s Aaron Blake reports. “The GOP has seen candidate recruitment rise as joblessness continues to climb to new highs and Wall Street retreats after a brief respite in March, April and May.”

In Lisa Madigan’s wake: “One fence sitter, North Shore U.S. Rep. Mark Kirk, began calling top Republican colleagues soliciting support for a U.S. Senate bid,” per the Chicago Tribune. “A Republican source in Washington said Kirk told Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, chairman of the Republican National Senatorial Committee, that he was in the race. Kirk later told the Tribune a Senate bid was ‘obviously more likely’ with Madigan out but he was ‘still talking to supporters and friends.’ ”

“The gorilla has spoken,” Lynn Sweet reports in the Chicago Sun-Times.

(Do these attempts to steer primaries in a particular direction ever work out for national parties? Could there have been a bigger mess — from the very start — over the president’s old Senate seat?)

Plus — ready for another intelligence tussle? (Will this make the next set of Republican resolutions harder to block?)

“The chairman of the House intelligence committee has accused the CIA of lying to the panel in a classified matter, the second time in less than two months that a top House Democrat has charged the spy agency of intentionally misleading Congress,” The Washington Post’s Paul Kane reports. “Rep. Silvestre Reyes (Tex.), in a letter sent Tuesday to House leadership, said that CIA officials ‘affirmatively lied’ to the intelligence committee when recently notifying the panel about a classified matter. Reyes wrote that it was one of several recent instances in which the CIA has not fully informed the committee on other classified notifications.”

“The letter also contends that Mr. Panetta said CIA officials have misled Congress since 2001,” The Wall Street Journal’s Siobhan Gorman reports. “The public tussle . . . threatens to further undermine Congressional relations with the CIA.”

From the CIA, per ABC’s Jonathan Karl: “Director Panetta stands by his May 15 statement. It is not the policy or practice of the CIA to mislead Congress. This Agency and this Director believe it is vital to keep the Congress fully and currently informed. Director Panetta's actions back that up. As the letter from these six representatives notes, it was the CIA itself that took the initiative to notify the oversight committees.”

Meanwhile: “President Obama threatened to veto the Intelligence Authorization Act Wednesday, asserting that Congress was unconstitutionally pursuing information about executive branch deliberations,” ABC’s Jake Tapper reports.

And what ever happened to health care month?

“Little progress has been made in continuing negotiations on Capitol Hill over a bipartisan health care reform bill,” ABC’s George Stephanopoulos reports. “As a fall back plan, Democrats on Capitol Hill are planning to go this alone. That will increase the chance that we'll see Obama's public option in the bill.”

Just behind those flashy White House announcements: “The Obama administration, hoping to boost its health-care reform effort with financial concessions from the hospital and pharmaceutical industries, is instead confronting deep dissension on several fronts within Democratic ranks and possible defections among key constituencies,” Ceci Connolly and Michael D. Shear report in The Washington Post. “No single development appeared likely to kill Obama's signature domestic agenda item, but the relentless barrage of challenges that seemed to hit hourly served to demonstrate why no president since Lyndon B. Johnson has been able to enact large-scale health legislation.”

“Off camera and quietly, business lobbyists have been stewing,” the AP’s Alan Fram reports. “Their concern: The many billions in savings health providers are promising will ultimately come from the pockets of the nation's employers, who are already drowning in medical costs.”

Not there yet: “President Barack Obama has failed thus far to clinch the support of a handful of pivotal Democratic senators on two of his top priorities: extending health coverage to the uninsured and reducing greenhouse gases,” Bloomberg’s Catherine Dodge and James Rowley report.

Taxing health benefits? That’s a no-go, per Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. “Reid's move blows a gigantic hole in efforts to find $1 trillion to pay for health reform – and set off a scramble Wednesday to come up with a replacement for the suddenly missing $320 billion over 10 years,” Politico’s Carrie Budoff Brown and Patrick O’Connor report.

Sorting it out: “White House Budget Director Peter Orszag raised the stakes in the congressional debate over the issue by telling Democratic lawmakers a proposal they are considering ‘would perpetuate a system in which best practices are far from universal and costs are too high,’ ” Bloomberg’s Ryan J. Donmoyer and Nicole Gaouette report.

Checking in on the G-8: “The leaders of the Group of Eight industrialized nations will issue a joint statement [Wednesday] evening expressing serious concerns about the post-election violence in Iran, as well as its continued pursuit of nuclear weapons, but the G-8 will not push for new economic sanctions or tougher enforcement of those that exist, an Obama administration source told ABC News this afternoon,” ABC’s Jake Tappers and Karen Travers report.

What’s not getting done: “The Group of Eight leading nations agreed Wednesday to cut their emissions of heat-trapping gases 80% by 2050, but failed to reach an accord on shorter-term targets — a setback that could have repercussions for a major meeting on climate change in Copenhagen later this year,” The Wall Street Journal’s Jonathan Weisman writes.

“It’s a packed itinerary, but what is actually going to be accomplished?” Newsweek’s Holly Bailey asks.

H1N1 news in Washington Thursday, per an HHS official: “Top White House Officials and top Cabinet officials including Secretaries [Janet] Napolitano, [Kathleen] Sebelius and [Arne] Duncan will gather this morning with delegations from more than 54 states, tribe and territories at NIH for the H1N1 Flu Preparedness Summit.”

“The Administration will announce at the Summit that they are launching a new PSA campaign contest to encourage more Americans to get involved in the nation’s flu preparedness efforts by making a 15-second or 30-second PSA. . . . . The winning PSA will receive $2,500 in cash and will appear on national television. Contest details as well more information about the larger effort to plan and prepare for the flu season are available at http://www.flu.gov.”

The country’s moved on to other scandals, but back in Nevada: “Doug Hampton spoke publicly for the first time Wednesday about the affair his wife had with Sen. John Ensign, alleging that the Nevada Republican engaged in a lengthy and calculated series of deceptions despite repeated attempts to get him to stop,” J. Patrick Coolican and Lisa Mascaro write in the Las Vegas Sun.

“Hampton claimed that Ensign paid Cynthia Hampton considerably more than $25,000 in severance when she was told to leave her job with Ensign’s campaign committee in April 2008. Ensign did not report the payment, as required by law, according to a Washington watchdog group,” they write.

A wider net: “Sen. Tom Coburn knew more than a year ago that his Republican colleague John Ensign was having an affair with a staffer — and he reportedly urged Ensign to end the relationship and pay a substantial sum of money to the staffer and her husband,” Politico’s John Bresnahan and Glenn Thrush report.

Gov. Sarah Palin, R-Alaska, nabs the Time cover: “Palin's unconventional step speaks to an ingrained frontier skepticism of authority — even one's own. Given the plunging credibility of institutions and élites, that's a mood that fits the Palin brand,” Time’s David von Drehle and Jay Newton-Small report.

Mike Murphy is done with her: “Gov. Sarah Palin is the political train wreck that keeps on giving,” he writes in a New York Daily News op-ed. “Yet even after she helped cost McCain the election, Palin's great charm endured, at least among many grass-roots Republicans. At least until her astonishing self-immolation during a hastily organized backyard press conference last week, where she gamely competed with honking geese to resign midterm as Alaska's rookie governor.”

Watch out Obama World. From Bloomberg’s Al Hunt memo to colleagues: “John McCormick of the Chicago Tribune will be join Bloomberg News, based in Chicago. John will be covering a wide range of corporate and political news, including coverage of the Obama World in Chicago.”

The Kicker:

“Next time we won't give up a 2-to-nothing lead.” — President Obama, turning from hockey to soccer when meeting with Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, per ABC’s Jake Tapper and Karen Travers.

“FOR THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: Barak Obama.” — White House release on arms-reduction treaty, possibly giving spell check too much leeway.

Today on the “Top Line” political Webcast, at noon ET: Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Texas, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee; and Politico’s Mike Allen.

Follow The Note on Twitter: http://twitter.com/thenote

For up-to-the-minute political updates check out The Note’s blog . . . all day every day:
http://blogs.abcnews.com/thenote/

Stimulus Spin: Is it Working?

ABC News’ Rick Klein reports:

To close watchers of the stimulus bill — and the spin wars surrounding it — Vice President Joe Biden made a comment yesterday that may have been even more startling that his admission that waste and scams are inevitable.

“You're going to see things start to really change in the second hundred days,” Biden told a business roundtable at Pace University, according to the New York Daily News. “You're going to see this thing begin to move.”

What’s interesting about that comment is that the administration has maintained that the stimulus is already working.

President Obama and his economic team have fanned out to make the case that the stimulus has already “saved or created” 150,000 jobs. Biden’s office last week issued a report titled “100 Days, 100 Projects” to tout projects (with some exaggeration) that the administration claims are happening because of the stimulus.

But the truth is, even the Obama administration isn’t able to say for sure how many jobs the stimulus is saving and/or creating. No one is able to even say how many of the projects approved by the administration have even begun, because “it's such a moving target,” Jared Bernstein, Biden’s top economic adviser, said on ABCNews.com’s “Top Line” last week.

With its promises to “save or create” 3.5 million new jobs, the Obama White House has set a fuzzy bar for itself; no one will ever really be able to say whether it’s been cleared.

Even with the stimulus on the books, unemployment rose last month, and is likely to continue to rise in the coming months, according to the administration; the argument Bernstein and the economic team make is that job losses would be worse without the stimulus.

The problem, as Republicans are eager to point out, is that it’s really not possible to measure a “saved” job. The administration will be collecting such data from those receiving stimulus funds, but has said those numbers will only be used to supplement other job indicators, and won’t be the final word on job creation.

It’s an imprecise measurement in a very imprecise field: “To understand just how unknowable this data point is, it's not necessary to be an economist, a mathematician or a statistician,” writes Tony Fratto, an economist-turned-CNBC-analyst who was a deputy press secretary under President George W. Bush.

“You only need to know this: the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) — thousands of the most professional and rigorous counters and analyzers of labor data in the history of mankind — makes TWO revisions of employment data for their ESTIMATE of the PREVIOUS month! And even then the reports are mere estimates — an annual benchmark survey is required to reset the nation's payroll baseline.”

“That is, the best employment statisticians the world has ever known, people whose lives are dedicated to employment data, conducting labor surveys and research, constantly refining their complex models, have a difficult time telling you how many jobs were created in the PAST!”

There’s an undeniable political element to all of this, too. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is already running radio ads against six Republican lawmakers, attacking them for opposing the stimulus package.

“Did you know Congressman King voted against the Economic Recovery Plan?” reads the script in one of the ads, targeting Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y. “He opposed an $800 tax cut and opposed creating or saving 215,000 New York jobs. Tell King to put New York first.”

The ads amount to a gamble by Democrats not simply that the stimulus is working, but that it will be deemed a political winner next November.

“It is working,” DCCC Chairman Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., told us on “Top Line” Tuesday. “And as the president said the other day, about 150,000 jobs have now been saved or created as a result of the economic recovery plan. A lot of people would have been laid off, but for the fact that there are more road or bridge projects out there.”

White House Adviser: Economy ‘Deep in the Woods’ – but Stimulus is Working

ABC News’ Rick Klein reports:

With the stimulus bill now on the books for more than 100 days, the White House is eager to tout its impact on the economy – even while acknowledging that the nation is still in a recession, with further job losses all but inevitable.

On ABCNews.com’s “Top Line” today, Jared Bernstein, the chief economic adviser to Vice President Joe Biden, told us that the unemployment rate is likely to continue to rise this year, despite the approval of the $787 billion stimulus package.

But the package is still on track to “save or create” 3.5 million jobs, Bernstein said.

“The economy is still in recession. Let’s be very clear about that. When you’re losing hundreds of thousands of jobs per month, and unemployment is rising — and we expect both those things to continue for months to come — that’s a recession,” Bernstein told us.

“We’re not out of the woods. We’re deep in the woods. But there are some signs that suggest the worst is behind us,” he said.

Bernstein comments come as the White House continues its effort to convey optimism about the state of the economy.

“When you look at the economy right now I think it’s safe to say that we have stepped back from the brink, that there is some calm that didn’t exist before,” President Obama said last night at a fundraiser in Los Angeles.

The White House is also eager to talk up the impact of the stimulus package.

Said Bernstein: “The idea here is that, yes, the unemployment rate is rising, but it would be rising more quickly [without the bill]. . . . We’re spending about $1 billion a day — and, by the way, with very careful oversight — and that’s creating, again, economic activity that would not have occurred in the absence of this plan. That’s the essential point.”

Obama’s presidential transition team originally predicted that a massive economic stimulus package would help hold the national unemployment rate below 8 percent.

But such forecasts have had to be revised. The latest government jobs report pegged the rate at 8.9 percent and rising, with many economists expecting it to reach double digits later this year.

The White House expects GDP growth to reach positive territory later this year, Bernstein said — but not in a sharp enough turnaround that it’s likely to bring the unemployment rate up.

“Positive GDP growth doesn’t mean lower unemployment,” he said. “You have to get GDP growth at trend or above trend to get that unemployment rate down. That’s why it’s key that the plan keeps working through next year.”

The president is claiming that the stimulus has already “saved or created” 150,000 jobs, though Bernstein acknowledged that that’s an estimate that isn’t based on reports of actual jobs being saved or created. When that information comes in, he said, it is “going to be part of our estimate.”

Bernstein said there are “3,000 construction projects that are out there in the economy underway,” but he said he couldn’t be sure how many projects have actually begun.

“It’s such a moving target,” he said.

The administration this week said that $116.1 billion in stimulus money has been made available for spending, but that only $31.1 billion had actually been spent.

On Wednesday, Biden submitted a report entitled “100 Days, 100 Projects,” touting the stimulus act’s successes.

But not all of those projects have actually begun, and at least some of the descriptions of projects seem overhyped, as ABC’s Jake Tapper reports.

Click HERE to see our full interview with Jared Bernstein.

We also chatted with Politico’s Jonathan Martin about the Supreme Court battle (or lack thereof), and the continuing controversy surrounding Sen. Roland Burris, D-Ill.

Click HERE to see the interview with Jonathan Martin.

Selling the Stimulus — to Federal Workers?

ABC News’ Rick Klein reports:

It’s the latest “shovel-ready” solution.

The federal government is now advertising the stimulus package to . . . federal workers.

It’s part an interesting ad campaign that’s been launched in Washington. The ads include three small, identical billboards inside Union Station, a major commuter hub just a few blocks from the Capitol.

“Let’s Make Progress TOGETHER,” the ads state, with text bannered over a picture of hands touching an American flag.

In the bottom right of the ad is the distinctive circular logo for the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act — better known as the stimulus package.

The ads tout “GSA Acquisition Solutions . . . ‘Shovel-Ready.’ ”

The ads are sharing wall space with ads for Carnival Cruise Lines, near one of the Metro entrances at Union Station.

What’s going on? Why would the federal government need to be advertising the stimulus to its own workers?

The ad was placed by the US General Services Administration, a lesser-known federal agency that essentially exists to provide support for other federal agencies.

According to a GSA spokesman, the ad is paid for out of GSA’s regular advertising budget — not stimulus dollars. ABC News asked for more details on how much is being spent on the ads, and how extensive the ad campaign is; we’ll update this post when we get more information.

The ad touts a Website, gsa.gov/recoverysolutions, which provides information about a suite of GSA services available to federal workers who are working on stimulus contracts for their agencies.

Michael Robertson, a GSA spokesman, said the ads are designed to encourage government workers to make purchases through GSA-negotiated price schedules. Everything from office supplies to computer support and custodial services can be cheaper through GSA, he said.

“The government agencies are GSA’s clients,” he said. “We compete with the rest of the market to provide services to the government agencies.”

As for how ads at Metro stops fit with the GSA mission, Robertson said: “This is DC; most federal workers are here. You try and find the consumers where they live.”

White House Report: Stimulus Will Create or Save 1.5M Jobs — We Think

ABC’s Lisa Chinn and Rick Klein reports:

The White House Council of Economic Advisers issued a report today predicting that the stimulus package will save or create 1.5 million jobs by the end of this year. That’s in line with previous White House estimates.

But there’s a big caveat: Because there is no uniform, reliable reporting formula for states and agencies to use to calculate real jobs saved and created, there is no way to fact-check the projections.

Rather than measuring actual jobs created, the CEA estimate is based on a formula widely used by economists: that a 1 percent increase in GDP equates to approximately 1 million jobs.

The council also makes the assumption that GDP will grow, due to an increase in government purchases, and tax decreases that have only just taken effect.

It is, the report concedes, “an imperfect” measurement.

“The macroeconomic methodology used to derive the aggregate jobs estimates provides only an imperfect way to try to separate out the different types of jobs created by government spending,” the report states.

Actual reports of jobs created, while required by Congress for entities receiving stimulus funds, will provide “some independent documentation of jobs created or retained by the Act” — but won’t be the way the White House measures progress, according to the report.

“While such independent documentation is immensely valuable, it is important to be aware of the limitations of the reported jobs numbers,” the report states.

The administration continues to defend its initial assessment that the Recovery Act will ultimately create or save 3.5 million jobs. But the new report includes the caveat that the bulk of that increase will be seen at the end of 2010.

President Obama said at a news conference last month that the stimulus bill had already “saved or created over 150,000 jobs.”

The Labor Department, meanwhile, reported last week that the economy shed 539,000 jobs last month — fewer than analysts were predicting.

The CEA must also release a report to Congress in August on its analysis of the economic impacts of the Recovery Act.

LaHood: Stimulus Jobs Will be Sustainable — if Congress Acts

ABC News’ Rick Klein reports: With the Obama administration selling the on-the-ground-impact of the stimulus bill, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood told us today that infrastructure projects are on their way to creating “thousands” of new jobs — jobs that he said will be sustainable if Congress follows up with a comprehensive transportation bill.

“They’ll be sustainable because Congress, right on the heels of this, is gonna pass an authorization bill to authorize another highway bill for another five years, which will include additional projects,” LaHood said on ABCNews’com’s “Top Line.”

“Not the ones we’re funding . . . but additional projects — more roads, more bridges, more light rail, high-speed rail, thinking a little bit differently about how we do transportation,” he added. “So, are they sustainable? They’ll be sustainable if Congress passes the authorization on the heels of the stimulus 18 months down the road here.”

On Thursday, President Obama is set to unveil a major high-speed rail initiative — paid for, at least initially, by money that’s already been approved by Congress as part of the stimulus.

LaHood also suggested he would be taking a relatively hands-off approach on the always-controversial issue of earmarks.

“I think the leadership of Congress has gotten the message on earmarks,” said LaHood, who requested and received earmarks frequently when he represented an Illinois House district. “They’re really — the American taxpayer doesn’t like them, the President has sent a pretty loud message that he doesn’t like them, and it’ll be up to the Congress to decide whether they really want to go against the will of the people here.”

He added: “Well, look, it’s not going to be up to me. I’m not going to write the bill. I didn’t get elected to anything. But these members of Congress will have to make a decision whether they want to continue with the level of criticism that’s been leveled against earmarks, or whether they really want to do it in a way that reflects what the needs are around the country.”

Though LaHood joined President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden yesterday in celebrating the 2,000th transportation project to get approved, work has begun on only a small fraction of those projects.

But that’s about to change, LaHood said.

“As soon as the weather breaks in most of the country, you’re going to see an enormous number of people working on roads and bridges, and I think it’s probably another month,” he said. “You know, I was in Illinois over the weekend and it was snowing, so it’s pretty hard to get a shovel in the ground when you have that kind of weather. But within the next 30 days, a lot of these projects are going to begin and you’re going to see working — in good paying jobs, by the way.”

In addition, as something of an Obama emissary to Republicans — LaHood is the only former GOP elected official in the Cabinet — he all but guaranteed Republican support for some major Obama initiatives later this year.

“I think Republicans want to be helpful on energy, on education, and on healthcare,” he said. “And I think — I’ve heard the President say this — we’re gonna continue to reach out to Republicans, we want them to be a part of helping us solve these very, very complex problems, and you know, it’s not a political slogan with the President. I’m proof of it, I’m a Republican, I’m included in the Cabinet, and so it’s not a political slogan, and I think you’ll see the President and some of the rest of us reach out to Republicans.”

Click HERE to see our interview with Secretary LaHood.

We also chatted with Republican strategist Kevin Madden about the politics of stimulus spending, the Minnesota Senate race, and tomorrow’s nationwide “tea party” protests.

Click HERE to see the interview with Madden.