ARRA Status Report - April, 2010

The President's Council of Economic Advisors (CEA) has been tasked with reporting to Congress on a quarterly basis on the effects of the Recovery Act. The report details spending up to the end of the 1st quarter of calendar 2010, as well as job estimates and analysis of trends.

Through the first quarter of 2010, the CEA estimates that ARRA is responsible for 2.2 - 2.8 million jobs. Roughly half of these jobs are due to tax cuts and income supports. But . . .keep in mind the proviso listed by the CEA: "Identifying the impact of policy actions is inherently difficult, and the estimates must be understood to be subject to large margins of error." This certainly sounds more professional than "This is our best guess," although the meaning is eerily similar.

Census Bureau and ARRA?

The link above is to a press release last year about the Census Bureau's meeting of a July 1, 2009 deadline to hire 2200 people with ARRA funds. The Census Bureau received a billion dollars from ARRA.

My question is this: Does "Buy American" ring any bells? I personally saw some Census 2010 merchandise, given away as freebies by Census workers, that appears to be problematic. The baseball cap was made in China, and the T-shirt was made in Thailand. I realize that "Buy American" has huge exceptions, but shouldn't the federal government make an extra effort to comply with ARRA's buy American provisions?

Question: Which Rules to Follow?

Question: We want to make a purchase that we have been told is improper under state law, but no federal law or rule specifically addresses this. Since it is ARRA money, can we do it under the federal rules?

Answer: No. The federal rules basically say that you have to comply with state law unless there is a conflict with federal law. The lack of any federal rule is not a conflict, and the ARRA Police will take a dim view of violating state law with ARRA funds.