The Capitol Monitor knows that you're most interested in how much stimulus money is coming into your community, for what purpose it's being spent, and who's getting that money. While it's extremely difficult to obtain specific project data, we're working hard to give you access to the information you need to answer your questions about stimulus spending in your home town.
Our new chart of specific stimulus projects allows you to sort and search the data in many different ways - by county, by agency, by type of grant, and more (you can see how spending in your community compares with unemployment on our second chart, below). We've also included the names of your state senators and representatives, so you can contact them with your concerns about spending in your area -- or in your area of interest.
Remember ... it's YOUR money! Here's how it's been spent so far ... HERE'S THE CHART
At the Capitol Monitor, we're not only tracking stimulus spending by project – we’re tracking it county-by-county, comparing the government's spending choices with North Carolina’s needs. But the counties with the highest unemployment don’t always get the most money for “job creation.” See how your county fares in this chart, which is updated monthly as new unemployment figures are released. HERE'S THE CHART, reflecting November's unemployment & spending.
Can't you just feel the economy booming? Thankfully, Washington’s $787 billion stimulus is creating jobs at warp speed.According to a new White House report, “The economic stimulus passed almost a year ago was responsible for between 1.5 million and 2 million...... MORE
Remember the famous adage "Those who refuse to learn from the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them"?Since passage of the Obama administration’s $787 billion stimulus in February of 2009, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that our economy...... MORE
The Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board has just published a list of more than 4,000 prime recipients of ARRA contracts and grants that failed to comply with the first round of reporting requirements, including data on job creation and retention.If...... MORE
North Carolina local governments took advantage of the federal government's December 15, 2009 deadline to apply for $1.025 billion in federally subsidized bonding authority under the stimulus plan's Build America bonds program. Among the first to jump in – Charlotte...... MORE
Let’s say that despite all you’ve heard about erroneous stimulus jobs reporting in recent weeks, you still buy the argument that the stimulus is “creating & saving” jobs. How are private North Carolina businesses – and the unemployed – faring under...... MORE
According to a report in the Washington Times, the federal website Recovery.gov, the "official" tracking site for stimulus spending, came at an initial cost of more than $85 million to taxpayers, so one might expect, at the very least, accuracy. Last...... MORE
Noting the complexity of the language being used in press releases and websites which report on stimulus spending, Capitol Monitor has also created an ongoing glossary of ARRA terminology explaining frequently used terms and acronyms which describe stimulus project spending. The...... MORE
The first official reporting of job creation as a result of the $787 billion American Recovery & Reinvestment Act (ARRA) came due in October, and even if you believe the figures, the results are less than stellar.According to the official...... MORE
North Carolina’s stimulus czar (no, not his real title, but don’t we deserve a czar?) Dempsey Benton insists that the federal stimulus plan is going to save or create 105,000 jobs in our state by spending $6.3 billion over the...... MORE
With the recent spread of the swine flu in North Carolina, affecting hundreds and claiming the life of at least one individual in the state, the media is again reminding citizens of the deadly Spanish influenza pandemic of 1918-1919 that...... MORE
President Barack Obama has repeatedly said the days of “pork … as a strategy” are over. However he is proposing to spend billions of dollars on an expanded infrastructure in the stimulus bill. He has assured the nation that state governors...... MORE
So where, oh where have our stimulus jobs gone? Oh where, oh where can they be? That’s the hot tune in Washington and Raleigh. In an April 29th prime time news conference, President Obama declared, "We began by passing a...... MORE
Washington-watchers already know that the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) has pumped 50 billion taxpayer dollars into Citigroup to keep the big New York bank afloat, making Citigroup number two on the TARP parade.Here's what you may not know: That’s...... MORE
Despite President Obama's assertion that heavy equipment maker Caterpillar would hire employees if his stimulus bill became law, the company recently announced another round of layoffs, bring job losses for the company to 2454. Caterpillar never agreed with the President's...... MORE