Just ask Campbelsville, KY shoe store owner Buddy Moore, who accepted an $889.60 order from the Army to provide nine pairs of work boots for a porkulus project. The Army Corps of Engineers then called the shoe owner, according to the Wall Street Journal, to demand that he fill out his Recovery Act paperwork, showing how many jobs he had created or saved. Next the government called back to see how those forms were coming along.
Moore has been filling orders for the Army for decades, but has never seen anything like the paperwork required by the Recovery Act. He asked his daughter, Paula Moore-Kirby, to help him with the on-line form.
Moore-Kirby spent eight hours trying to fill out the form as accurately and completely as possible. Eight hours for an eight hundred dollar government contract. After calling the assistance hot line, and told that she could revise the filing if necessary, Moore's daughter reported that the store's share of stimulus funds had created or saved nine jobs -- because Moore sold the Army nine pairs of boots.
Moore-Kirby wonders how the job creation question should have been answered: "Did we create zero? Is it creating a job because they have boots and go out and work for the Corps?"
Little did Moore know when he agreed to sell the Army nine pairs of boots that he was about to become the poster-child for the Recovery Act's red tape and inflated claims of job creation.
