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D.C. Dispatches by Derek Wallbank

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    Kline demands hearing on stimulus job report errors

    By Derek Wallbank | Published Fri, Nov 20 2009 3:31 pm

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — Earlier this week, the government's stimulus tracking website reported that more than $2 million was spent in Minnesota's 9th congressional district, which hasn't existed since 1963. Though the erroneous districts have now been removed from Recovery.govthough they're still not correctly classified. All $7.5 million and 50 jobs once wrongly attributed are now listed as "unassigned".

    Rep. John Kline today demanded an explanation, sending a letter to House Education and Labor Chairman George Miller, D-Calif., requesting a full committee hearing on the errors, and requesting that Labor Secretary Hilda Solis testify on the matter. The letter was signed by all 19 of the committee's Republican members.

    "From fictional congressional districts to inflated job creation statistics, the Obama administration has perpetuated the American people’s concern that billions in stimulus dollars have been wasted or simply remain unaccounted for," said Kline, the senior Republican on the panel.

    "I hope we will have an opportunity to find out what the Administration plans to do to foster greater confidence in their stewardship of the economy," he continued. "At the very least, there needs to be a full accounting of how and why the supposed level of transparency on the part of the Democrats’ stimulus package has brought us misleading and outright false reporting. With so many unanswered questions, it’s time for the Secretary of Labor to provide some answers."

    In an interview Monday with “The Daily Show's” Jon Stewart, Vice President Joe Biden said the stimulus database errors were minor, attributing them to clerical errors made by recipients who simply didn't know what congressional district they were in at the time and guessed incorrectly.

    The full text of Kline's letter can be found here.

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    Illustration by Hugh Bennewitz

    minnpost.com/derekwallbank


    Derek Wallbank is MinnPost's Washington, D.C., correspondent, covering Minnesota's congressional delegation and reporting on developments out of Washington that are important to Minnesota readers. After graduating from Michigan State University, he covered Michigan politics for the Gongwer News Service, a publication aimed at political insiders. Later he became a reporter for the Lansing State Journal, writing about education and politics and founding the Journal's respected politics blog. Most recently he was a researcher and reporter with Congressional Quarterly in Washington, D.C. He can be reached at dwallbank[at]minnpost[dot]com.

    More dispatches by Derek Wallbank