If you haven't seen one of those orange and green "American Recovery and Reinvestment Act" construction signs in your part of Illinois recently, you may have -- as most of us -- forgotten that in Obama's federal stimulus legislation, there was supposed to be check and balance. Indeed, a Recovery Independent Advisory Panel was established, consisting of five Obama-appointed members to advise how fraud, waste and abuse could be avoided.
Only problem is, no such five people have been appointed by Obama yet. Maybe that's why thousands of jobs have been misplaced, millions of dollars pointed towards congressional districts that don't exist, and other mishaps have been recorded.
Congressman Joe "You Lie!" Wilson wrote the president this week, asking for a followup on the panel. Any Illinois Review reader interested in volunteering for this historical panel?
Congressman Wilson's letter --
November 19, 2009
President Barack Obama
The White House
Washington, DC 20500
President Obama:
All Americans share your goal of ensuring that federal funds are spent in a transparent and productive manner. I applaud your efforts and intention to bring transparency to such an extraordinary spending bill by creating a website to provide easy access to data related to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (P.L. 111-5). However, recent media reports have indicated that there are major discrepancies and inaccuracies of reporting on Recovery.gov. Millions of dollars have been spent to create jobs in non-existent Congressional districts. In other incidences, millions were spent, but no jobs were created.
Within the Recovery Act, there is a provision that allows for the establishment of a Recovery Independent Advisory Panel (RIAP). This panel consists of five presidentially appointed members to advise the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board on how it could prevent fraud, waste, and abuse relating to covered funds.
I urge you to appoint this panel immediately. The Recovery Act is one of the largest spending bills in our nation’s history and it’s critical that we work together to maintain our goals of transparency and accountability.
Accountability of the people’s money is so important that if this panel is not appointed by December 1, 2009, I intend to call for an outside, independent examination of spending and reporting inaccuracies of every stimulus dollar appropriated.
I thank you in advance for your prompt consideration of this request.
Very truly yours,
JOE WILSON
Member of Congress
