72,000 Stimulus Checks Sent to the Dead

From:  FOX News

72,000 Stimulus Checks Sent to the Dead
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/10/07/stimulus-checks-sent-dead/



The Social Security Administration sent about 89,000 stimulus payments of $250 each to dead and incarcerated people — but almost half of them were returned, a new inspector-general’s report has found.


The agency was charged with distributing the one-time payments, worth about $13 billion in total, as part of the economic-stimulus package passed in February 2009. Most of the payments were made in May 2009.

The inspector general found that about 72,000 payments were sent by electronic-transfer and as checks to people who would have qualified to receive them — had they still been alive. The report said that of these payments, about 55,000 were sent because the recipients had died recently, and the Social Security Administration had not been informed of their deaths by states, families or funeral homes at the time the payments were sent. The remaining 17,000 of the mistaken payments were attributed to the SSA failing to properly process death records that it did have. . . . .

$162 million in stimulus funds not disclosed

From:  USA Today

$162 million in stimulus funds not disclosed
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2010-10-06-stimulus06_ST_N.htm



Recovery.gov promised transparency on how the government spends every dollar of stimulus money, but there's $162 million the website doesn't disclose.


Recipients of 352 federal stimulus contracts, grants and loans have failed to report how they spent the money, the status of their projects or how many jobs were funded, according to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB).

Despite orders from the White House to crack down, enforcement is spotty. . . . .

Credit Unions Bailed Out

From:  The Wall Street Journal

Credit Unions Bailed Out


U.S. Backs $30 Billion in Bonds to Stabilize Key Institutions; Subprime Legacy
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703499604575512254063682236.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_LEFTWhatsNewsCollection
 
 
Two years after the peak of the financial crisis, the federal government swooped in to stabilize a crucial part of the credit-union sector battered by losses on subprime mortgages.


Regulators announced Friday a rescue and revamping of the nation's wholesale credit union system, underpinned by a federal guarantee valued at $30 billion or more. Wholesale credit unions don't deal with the general public but provide essential back-office services to thousands of other credit unions across the U.S. The majority of retail credit unions are sound, but they will have to shoulder the losses through special assessments over the next decade. . . . .

Little-known fact: Obama's failed stimulus program cost more than the Iraq war

From: The Washington Examiner

Little-known fact: Obama's failed stimulus program cost more than the Iraq war
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/Little-known-fact-Obamas-failed-stimulus-program-cost-more-than-the-Iraq-war-101302919.html


Expect to hear a lot about how much the Iraq war cost in the days ahead from Democrats worried about voter wrath against their unprecedented spending excesses.

The meme is simple: The economy is in a shambles because of Bush's economic policies and his war in Iraq. As American Thinker's Randall Hoven points out, that's the message being peddled by lefties as diverse as former Clinton political strategist James Carville, economist Joseph Stiglitz, and The Nation's Washington editor, Christopher Hayes.

The key point in the mantra is an alleged $3 trillion cost for the war. Well, it was expensive to be sure, in both blood and treasure, but, as Hoven notes, the CBO puts the total cost at $709 billion. To put that figure in the proper context of overall spending since the war began in 2003, Hoven provides this handy CBO chart showing the portion of the annual deficit attributable to the conflict: . . . . . .