Showing posts with label ARRA Vermont job estimates stimulus. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ARRA Vermont job estimates stimulus. Show all posts

Monday, October 19, 2009

Cat blogging with Chevy panel truck


Some Mondays are strangely more suited than others for a white cat and a Chevy panel truck. Today is one such day. For those who need more here is an observation on contemporary America from Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders
"The top 1 percent owns more wealth then the bottom 90 percent. CEOs of large corporations earn 400 times what their workers make. That is not what America is supposed to be about."

Senator Sanders Unfiltered

Saturday, September 26, 2009

“And we are very transparent”


Wonderfully timed in the same week Vermont Gov. Douglas completes his plan to lay off 300 state workers the commissioner of the Vermont Department of Forests, Parks and Recreation has a “My Turn”opinion piece in the Burlington Free Press .Commissioner Gibbs’ noted earlier triumph had been to put up a Facebook page for the Dept or Forests and Parks . Now he shamelessly borrows language reminiscent of the New Deal and recalls the CCC .One can only marvel at the moxie of these small government fellows.
At Gov. Jim Douglas' direction, the Department of Forests, Parks and Recreation is doing everything it can to generate economic activity and create jobs. We're pleased to report that your investment of tax dollars is achieving important results and producing meaningful returns.

Earlier the Governor Douglas and his State Stimulus Recovery Czar took a stand against placing inexpensive (signs can cost as little as $300.00) ARRA signs at Vermont projects notifying state run Federal stimulus funded highway projects .He was reportedly angered when a photograph of him at an event was published with one of the orange signs in the image.

Jason Gibbs is not orange but is much more costly and basically serves the same purpose as the scorned ARRA stimulus road signs.
The Governor’s personal human signage continues ………..

Our projects meet the strictest definition of "shovel ready" and are moving forward swiftly. We've targeted long-term, infrastructure projects that create good trade jobs -- carpentry, plumbing, masonry, electric, excavating, roofing and others -- critical to immediate and sustained economic growth. And we are transparent. It is important that taxpayers and policymakers see the immediate economic and lasting environmental values of investing in these natural resources.

also at Green Mountain Daily

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Unnamed Vermont official questions ARRA job estimate

A question by an unnamed Vermont state official at an ARRA implementation conference has Earl Devaney* Chairman of the Recovery Act Transparency and Accountability Board questioning job estimates. Devaney said: “This whole thing has got me very nervous.”

*(Devaney was the former inspector general at the Interior Department, he helped unearth the Jack Abramoff scandal)

According to a press pool report from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act Implementation Conference, an unnamed state official from Vermont asked if state job numbers on the recovery.gov Web site were made up.

Devaney, according to the pool report, pointed to the difficulty of defining a saved or created job.
“We need to all be playing off the same sheet of music,” Devaney went on. “If I’m going to be held accountable for this Web site, and there’s a graph in there that talks about jobs created or saved, it’s going to be as accurate as I can get it.”
Devaney, according to the pool report, pointed to the difficulty of defining a saved or created job.

And if anyone knows who the Green Mountain stater who asked the original question was,we would love to know .

http://www.propublica.org/ion/stimulus/item/stimulus-oversight-chief-questions-jobs-numbers-too-316
http://www.greenmountaindaily.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=4184