Jobs Saved > Jobs Funded

"Despite mounting a vigorous defense of its earlier count of more than 640,000 jobs credited to the stimulus, even after numerous errors were identified, the Obama administration now is making it easier to give the stimulus credit for hiring. It's no longer about counting a job as saved or created; now it's a matter of counting jobs funded by the stimulus." Apparently realizing that they cannot even substantiate the alleged reports of 640,000 "saved or created" jobs as a result of the $787 B stimulus, the administration has decided to scrap the system altogether and measure those jobs "funded," whatever that means. Obviously this creative accounting scheme will make it easier for Obama to "keep" his promise to save or create 3.5 million jobs by the end of this year although Tom Gavin from OMB claimed that the transparent job reporting system was "never expected to be the public accounting of Obama's goal to save or create 3.5 million jobs." Really? Then what was it for and why change it now? Of course, the truth is that the administration is changing the rules and attempting to inflate the Recovery Act's impact to downplay the failure of the program in creating jobs. The upside is that this has proven so unpopular and such an embarassment to the administration that IF it asks Congress to approve round two, they will refuse him, sparing the budget deficit from another devastating blow.