First There Was Jobs Saved, Now Obama Counting 'Lives Touched'

You can't make this stuff up.

A Government Accountability Office report released Thursday shows that the Department of Energy has spent more than $1.9 billion in stimulus funds to create 10,018 jobs through May, an average of $194,213 spent per full-time job created.

“As a small business owner for nearly 22 years, I’m shocked that these jobs cost taxpayers nearly $195,000 each,” U.S. Rep. Greg Walden (R-Ore.) said. “Taxpayers deserve more for their investment. This is more evidence that the private sector is far more capable than the federal government at creating the long-term jobs required for a sustainable economic recovery.”

“It looks like the Department of Energy got in over its head when it was handed $6 billion in stimulus money to create jobs by accelerating environmental cleanup work. This report says that DOE managed its timetables well enough, but it also indicates that so far, the jobs that DOE created cost $194,213 each,” said U.S. Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, ranking member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

While DOE reports that it created 10,018 jobs through May of this year, the department has also used a more unorthodox methodology to inflate job creation in some of its reports, a methodology the GAO says may mislead the public. For example, using the method GAO was critical of, the agency reports roughly 20,000 jobs created through May of this year, counting the number of “lives touched” in some documents.

H/T.