Some include the words, “Barack Obama, President.” Most say
“Putting America to Work.” All say “American Recovery and
Reinvestment Act.” Regardless, if you see another gaudy sign
promoting the $862 billion stimulus package, Rep. Darrell Issa
wants to know about it.
Issa, the ranking member on the House Oversight and
Government Reform Committee, has set up an e-mail address,
stimulussigns@gmail.com,
asking folks to send pictures of the signs with information.
The California Republican also asked the Government
Accountability Office (GAO) to explore whether the signs promoting
the recovery act, and other actions he considers propaganda, are
legal.
The Recovery Act Accountability and Transparency Board is
expected to release a report about the cost of the signs this
month. Congress did not make signs a part of the
recovery act. Rather, the White House Office of Management and
Budget issued a March 2009 directive
for posting the signs.
“Projects funded by the American Recovery and
Reinvestment Act (ARRA) will bear a newly-designed emblem,” the OMB
directive said. “The emblem is a symbol of President Obama’s
commitment to the American People to invest their tax dollars
wisely to put Americans back to work.”
The words “will bear” imply a mandate for all state and
local governments or contractors getting stimulus money to post
these advertisements. That’s not the case, at least not now. Some
federal agencies required the posting of the signs, but scaled that
back to “strongly encourage” the posting of signs, according to
recent inspector general reports from the departments of
Transportation and Housing and Urban Development. Meanwhile, the
Department of Commerce still requires the posting, according to its
IG report.
By far, the Department of Transportation has the strictest
guidelines, regarding size and visibility of the signs and making
no bones that the point of the signs was to “publicize” the
recovery act.
“Despite eliminating requirements to post signs,
Department of Transportation agencies are still improperly focused
on pushing projects to display signs crediting President Obama and
the so-called ‘stimulus’ for earmarked funding handouts,” Issa said
in a statement. “The administration’s obsession with using taxpayer
money to get political credit for projects adds unnecessary
expenses and bureaucracy to a spending package that’s failing to
spur promised job creation in the private sector.”
The Obama administration insists that the signs are just
its way of being transparent.
“The Department of Transportation continues to believe
that taxpayers have the right to know where their Recovery Act
dollars are being spent,” DOT spokesman Bill Adams told
CNSNews.com.
The DOT agency guidelines vary. But the Office of
Inspector General reported that most
agency say that signs “be placed where they can be easily
identified with the corresponding projects.”
The Federal Aviation Administration guidelines said “the
signs should be solely used to publicize ARRA funding of an airport
project,” according to the IG report.
And state or local politicians should not even think about
getting as much credit for the existence of the project as the
Obama administration. The Federal Railroad Administration guidance
states, “Grantees may elect to have a secondary project sign which
identifies other project partners.” But it says, “Such secondary
signs should be smaller and less prominent than ARRA Project
Sign.”
The FRA also states the signs “should take the form of a
decal, no smaller than 12 inches measured diagonally. For passenger
rail cars, such decals should be placed so as to be visible to
every passenger entering the car.”
Like other agencies, the FRA guidelines initially said,
“The grantee shall post a sign at all fixed project locations at
the most publicly accessible location and a plaque in all purchased
or rehabilitated rail cars announcing that the project or equipment
was funded by the U.S. Department of Transportation, Federal
Railroad Administration with funds provided through the American
Recovery and Reinvestment Act.” This “shall” was dropped in favor
of encouraging such posting.
The Federal Transit Administration’s first issued
guidelines on April 7, 2009 that said the recipient “agrees” to
post the emblem. But FTA officials told the IG they changed that
policy to “encourage” on Aug. 14, 2009.
For the federal government to tell a grant recipient it
“strongly encourages” something is sort of like the mafia telling
someone it would be in their best interest to do something. Even if
it there was no risk of losing the stimulus dollars by not
following this encouragement, it is likely most state and local
officials hoping to get there projects funded erred on the side of
caution and just posted the dang signs. To their credit, both New
York and Georgia reportedly opted against posting the signs because
of cost.
HUD suggested
possible signs for recipients of stimulus-funded projects, one that
said “Funded By: American Recovery and Reinvestment Act/ Barack
Obama, President.” The Department of Commerce guidance says, “All
projects which are funded by the Recovery Act shall display signage
that features the Primary Emblem throughout the construction phase.
The signage should be displayed in a prominent location on site.”
The Commerce IG
report says, “Our review found no instances in which a bureau
had relaxed the Commerce’s Recovery Act signage policy
requirements or the implementation of those
requirements.”
If the signs and the hyper-intense guidelines stressing
their importance are indeed propaganda, it could be
illegal.
Appropriations law prohibits something “purely partisans
in nature” that is “designed to aid a political party or
candidate;” or “covert propaganda” that does not reveal that
government expenditures produced the messages,
according to a report by Republican staff on the House
Oversight and Government Reform Committee. Meanwhile, 18 U.S.C
Section 1913 says, “No part of the money appropriated by any
enactment of Congress shall, in the absence of express
authorization by Congress, be used directly or indirectly to pay
for any personal service, advertisement, telegram, telephone,
letter, printed or written matter or other device” to influence a
public official, the statute says. The committee staff report says
the signs and other propaganda could be a violation of the Hatch
Act, a law restricting political activity by public officials and
public agencies.
The matter drew attention after media reports on the
$10,000 sign at Dulles Airport. While waiting to hear back from the
Recovery Act Accountability and Transparency board on the cost of
the signs, Republicans on the oversight committee found that Ohio
spent $1 million on recovery signs and Illinois spent
$640,000.
Further, a typical “Men at Work” or “Right Lane Closed”
sign can be recycled and used for years to come on various
projects. Not these signs, pointed out one member of the oversight
committee who has been investigating the signs.
“It’s blatant propaganda on the part of the Obama
administration to take credit for the spending of public dollars,”
Rep. Aaron Schock, an Illinois Republican, told CNSNews.com. “It’s
propaganda that will be worthless in a matter of years.”
