Stimulus Package Gets High Marks

This is refreshing: A White House report issued on Friday gives the stimulus package high marks for coming in on time, under budget, and with few claims of fraud or abuse. While many have criticized the stimulus package as slow and wasteful, the report shows that the White House has met nearly a dozen deadlines set by Congress and was thrifty enough in its implementation that it was able to fund an additional 3,000 projects. Meanwhile, complaints of fraud have been filed on fewer than 2 percent of awards. "Certainly, the fraud and waste element has been smaller than I think anything anybody anticipated," Steve Ellis, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, tells The Washington Post. "You can certainly challenge some projects as questionable economically. But there haven't been the examples of outright fraud where the money is essentially lining somebody's pocket."