From D.C. to South Carolina, bitter dispute persists over stimulus jobs

By James Rosen - McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON -- There's no need to go to Washington to hear the increasingly shrill arguments over phantom congressional districts and the number of jobs created by the $787 billion economic-stimulus plan.

That dispute is raging across South Carolina among private-sector recipients of stimulus money and among state government officials tracking the funds and their impact.

New reports that the state unemployment rate rose to 12.1 percent last month, matching its peak level in June, give added urgency to the debate.

The debate over stimulus jobs escalated on Oct. 29, when the Obama administration released data saying the stimulus spending had saved or created 1 million jobs nationwide, including 8,147 in South Carolina.

S.C. Comptroller General Richard Eckstrom, tabbed by Gov. Mark Sanford to oversee the state's use and reporting of its federal stimulus funds, said the true number of stimulus-related jobs in South Carolina is likely half the number claimed by Obama.

“I would view those jobs with a very jaundiced eye,” Eckstrom said.

The state's top accountant believes that the economy was starting to turn around early this year, and that any jobs gained or preserved since then exist despite the stimulus package, not because of it.

“The (Obama) administration is like the rooster that crowed and said, ‘Look at what I did — I made the sun come up,'” Eckstrom told McClatchy. “Congress passed the stimulus bill to take advantage of the recovery-in-the-making and in the process stalled the economy.”

Eckstrom and Sanford — whose failed bid to reject $750 million in stimulus funds for South Carolina made national headlines — have been outspoken opponents of the plan from the start.

The National Governors Association just appointed Eckstrom and stimulus chiefs from nine other states to a new task force charged with devising more reliable ways of counting job gains tied to the recovery plan.

Eckstrom is pushing to count only permanent jobs, but he acknowledges that his approach likely won't be accepted by the panel.

House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn, a Columbia Democrat, defended the recovery program, saying, “What I do know is that you can walk into almost any school in the state and speak with a teacher who had received a pink slip last spring when funding was uncertain, but who today still has his or her job thanks to the stimulus. The same is true for law enforcement agencies and prisons.”