AP Fact Check: Biden Full of It on Stimulus

You don't say, Biden full of nonsense. To be frank when I heard this morning he claimed how well it was going I thought it was a bit of a knee slapper, but apparently it was even more absurd then first thought:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Vice President Joe Biden proclaimed success beyond expectations Thursday for the $787 billion economic stimulus, but his glowing assessment overlooks many of the program's problems, including delays in releasing money, questionable spending priorities and project picks that are under investigation.

In a speech aimed squarely at Republican criticism and public skepticism over the costly program's effectiveness, Biden said accomplishments over the past 100 days provide proof of promises kept when he and President Barack Obama began rolling out the plan earlier this year.

''The Recovery Act is doing more, faster and more efficiently and more effectively than most people expected,'' he said.........

Now that is pretty funny all by itself, and he somehow manages to paper over the fact that much of the stimulus money ended up as a quick fix to budget shortfalls, but it gets better!

In making the case that the recovery program was not just economically sound but also good policy, Biden noted that transportation money was replacing unsafe bridges.

''It is worthwhile to take some of those 5,000 bridges out there that are ready to collapse, follow what happened in the upper Midwest, and fix them,'' he said.

But most states are spending stimulus money on bridges that are already in good shape, another AP analysis found. Of the 2,476 bridges scheduled to receive stimulus money so far, nearly half have passed inspections with high marks, according to federal data. Those 1,123 sound bridges received such high inspection ratings that they normally would not qualify for federal bridge money, yet they will share in more than $1.2 billion in stimulus money, the AP analysis published in July found.

I can only assume the left wing talking point, now discredited, that by not spending money on infrastructure we had the Minneapolis tragedy.

Update: Money to Companies Under Legal and Ethics Clouds:

Government agencies in the New York region, wary about potential fraud and abuse in the $787 billion federal stimulus program, have said they are taking extraordinary measures to ensure that contracts for projects ranging from subway tunnels to summer jobs programs do not go to companies with questionable histories.But despite such efforts, records show that one federal agency has awarded $6 million in stimulus funds to a huge international construction management company that has been the focus of two criminal investigations in the last two years and was suspended in June from bidding on and performing work at New York City schools.

The company, Bovis Lend Lease LMB, avoided manslaughter charges late last year in the deaths of two firefighters at the former Deutsche Bank building in 2007, admitting failures and agreeing to safety reforms in an agreement with prosecutors.

The company’s legal troubles have continued this year with a separate investigation by the F.B.I., federal prosecutors in Brooklyn and the Manhattan district attorney’s office, which also investigated the Deutsche Bank fire. It centers on accusations of overbilling, bribery of union officials and other alleged improprieties on several large New York projects.

Bovis failed to disclose that inquiry, as required, to the School Construction Authority, a hybrid city-state agency, when it bid on a school project in Brooklyn in the summer. That failure led the agency, which has been among the most aggressive in tracking integrity issues involving contractors, to suspend Bovis in June from working for the authority and from bidding on its projects.