Souder calls for an audit of stimulus funds

Press release from US Congressman Mark Souder:

Souder calls for an audit of stimulus funds
Bill creates a bipartisan panel to investigate actual number of jobs saved or created by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act

(WASHINGTON, D.C.) U.S. Rep. Mark Souder announced today that he is cosponsoring H.R. 4219, the National Commission on American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which would set-up a ten member, bipartisan panel to provide oversight and accountability to prevent fraud, waste, and abuse relating to stimulus funds.

“Not only has the stimulus failed in its goal of curbing rising unemployment, the administration has relied on imprecise statistics and a significantly overstated number of jobs created to justify their spending,” Souder said.

“While the Web site has been recently updated, Recovery.gov originally reported spending millions of dollars in Indiana’s 10th and 18th congressional districts—at least until the next census, Indiana only has nine congressional districts,” Souder added. “These discrepancies and inaccuracies point to a much larger problem: overall lack of accountability.”

Within the original Recovery Act, there is a provision that allows for the establishment of a Recovery Independent Advisory Panel (RIAP). Despite Congressman Joe Wilson’s request that this panel be appointed by December 1, 2009, President Obama and his administration failed to act.

Now, H.R. 4219 would ensure this bipartisan commission is created and would require full accountability of taxpayer dollars spend under the stimulus. The commission would also investigate the actual effects of this “stimulus” bill and the true number of created jobs.

Following introduction yesterday in the U.S. House of Representatives, H.R. 4219 was referred to the House Committee on Education and Labor for further action.

A video clip of Congressman Souder’s remarks at today’s press conference can be viewed here.