Massive Waste and Few Jobs from $18 Billion Jobs Training Programs

Another example of why government intervention is NOT the answer to jobs creation!

President Obama continues to insist that government plays a key role in creating jobs. Yet, a new study by Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) shows that $18 billion for jobs training programs created few jobs but did greenlight massive waste and overspending by bureaucrats. Coburn's study found incredible duplication of effort in Oklahoma. For example, a small town of around 16,000 had 17 different jobs training programs. Good you say? Not so fast. Most of the money didn't go to help the unemployed. Most of it went to bureaucrats:

In August of 2011, Oklahoma’s Southeast Workforce Investment Board (SEWIB) passed a multi-million dollar budget which allocated only 14 cents of every dollar for actual job training services. The SEWIB’s budget allocated more for “administrative travel” than “dislocated worker services.”
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Job Corp, Oklahoma’s largest recipient of federal training dollars, spent over $36,000, during a 6 month timeframe, on flowers and billboards.
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In another case, Job Corp spent around $76,000 per person to help youth obtain minimum wage jobs.

And the few people who did find jobs were placed in menial jobs totally unrelated to the training they undertook.

Mitt Romney insists that the better alternative is to turn the money over to the states and let them design more accountable programs better tailored to meet the needs of their citizens and the state's economy.

But Obama continues to demand that more big government is the answer. He might be all in for creating and protecting unnecessary and expensive jobs for bureaucrats but when it comes to jobs for the Middle Class he's in over his head!