Rep. Jordan: Recovery.gov errors prove administration's 'incompetence'

A slew of inaccuracies believed to plague stimulus job data on Recovery.gov demonstrates the Obama administration's "incompetence," one House Republican stressed Thursday.

Before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee convened this morning to discuss a series of reporting discrepancies plaguing the White House's stimulus hub, committee member Rep. James Jordan (R-Ohio) lambasted the administration for failing to meet its own standards on transparency and accountability.

"I think what this really displays is this administration is now showing a level of incompetence that makes their credibility suspect with every single American...," the congressman told Fox News, adding the Web site's "made up numbers and lack of accountability" demonstrated the government was not suited to tackle larger issues, like healthcare reform.

"We hope we can get a little more accountability out this administration...," he added.

Lawmakers on both sides of the political aisle have expressed serious concerns about the White House's recovery act reporting effort, especially in the days after reporters discovered many of the congressional districts said to have received federal dollars actually do not exist.

The White House maintains the errors were merely typos and the jobs created are still real. But the administration's assurances that it was dealing with the problem still were not enough to assuage some lawmakers' concerns, as evidenced by this morning's oversight hearing.

While House members trickled into the chamber, Jordan stressed on Fox News that this hearing alone proved the president should never have pursued a federal stimulus -- and that Democrats should rethink their other big priorities, like healthcare and cap and trade.

"This is a joke," he said of the errors, "and it is why we never should have never traveled down this road of big federal government spending."

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