Accountability of the Scientific Stimulus Funding

eldavojohn writes "A blog tipped me off to a government site that allows me to see where my tax dollars went when the nebulous 'scientific stimulus' was granted. You might be able to find this information in a bill, but you can click on your state in this interactive site to see what has happened locally to you. Perhaps it's a sign of more government transparency in regards to spending or just more propaganda."

Comments

Re:This is all I've got to say about this.

[TimHunter]

Data entry errors. http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2009/11/17/looking-big-picture-recovery-act/

Not a government site

[Anonymous Coward]

This isn't a gov site. from the about us page:

ScienceWorksForUS is a joint effort of the Association of American Universities (AAU), the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU), and The Science Coalition (TSC) to demonstrate the impact of stimulus-funded university research activities across the country.

These are trade/lobbying organizations, not government agencies.

Stimulus Funding

[cephalien]

It's important to note that this stimulus funding (they're also called 'Recovery Act' grants) were under a very short submission cycle.

Essentially, we only had a few months to prepare and submit a proposal to get funded, which isn't a lot of time -- unless you already had a proposal ready (or nearly ready) in the wings. What this means in a practical sense is that a lot of what the stimulus funds would have ended up going to is work that's in-progress, or stuff that larger labs want to do as pilot projects.

Also: someone in here suggested shorter-term studies. That's not how real science is done. We try to encapsulate some specific aims in the grant time-frame, but what really happens fundamentally is that we end up using the grant funds to answer enough questions that we can go and apply for another grant.

It's a much-less cohesive and efficient system than many people realize.

Re:This is all I've got to say about this.

[DaHat]

Such a convenient excuse (if true)... but still doesn't explain all of the fake jobs 'created or saved' in New Hampshire, Florida and Georgia, Ohio, Wisconsin, New Jersey, Virginia, Texas, Illinois, Colorado, Washington, Massachusetts, Arkansas, Connecticut, or Michigan.

Given the scope of the fakery going on... there are two options... even more errors, or a deliberate attempt to cook the books.

Giving the amazing failure of the stimulus... the latter is far more likely given the continued delusional claims that it saved us from the brink... instead it is setting us up for a double dip and massive inflation.

Re:This is all I've got to say about this.

[jhoegl]

Yes it does... The jobs do exist and you can find them via Zip code instead of district. The reality was that there was no district fact checking and nothing more. You want to blame anyone, blame the people that wrote down the false districts.

Re:This is all I've got to say about this.

[Red Flayer]

From the article linked to for NJ (which has nothing to do with NJ, btw -- are you trolling, assuming no one would click your links?) -- (emphasis mine)

At Southwest Georgia Community Action Council in Moultrie, Ga., director Myrtis Mulkey-Ndawula said she followed the guidelines the Obama administration provided. She said she multiplied the 508 employees by 1.84 -- the percentage pay raise they received -- and came up with 935 jobs saved.

You can't help idiocy. This idiot multiplied 508 by 1.84 instead of by 0.0184. People make stupid mistakes, and the failure here is that no one checked it.