Inaccurate stimulus numbers

So a little while ago, the article doesn't specifiy when, but recently a report appeared that said that the Stimulus had created over thirty Thousand jobs. The White House immediately started using that number to show that the stimulus program is working and on its way to perfection. However, the number is overstated by at least 5,000. Thats as much as the AP could count from the basic, non-exhaustive search it did. These are numbers reported by companies with federal contracts, that counted jobs multiple times. So they said they had hired maybe five people, but only hired one, and kept the rest of the money. Here is a link

Is it any wonder why certain segments of the population are distrustful of the government? It gives contracts to companies and helps them out, sure, but there are so many contractors that it becomes easy to hide overbilling in all the noise. Its hard to draw any specific conclusions about the current government, because I'm sure this has been going on for quite a while. It is easy to think of all the possibilities for corruption that can flourish in an environment such as this. With this in mind, does it make sense that an enormous government program, like health coverage for all, would be spotlessly clean and honest and efficient? When such a relatively small amount of money spent on the stimulus is being wasted?

I'm sure it wasn't Obama's intention to waste money as part of the stimulus, and it likely isn't his intention to waste money with the Health Plan, but when you have so much money flying out to so many parties, some of it is going to evaporate. This number which is reported on the recovery.gov website is a survey from 9,000 contractors. Each one of those is a company, not just a person.

Maybe larger government programs with expanded powers isn't what we need, maybe all we need is just a government with less employees and more efficient spending, just on things that are absolutely necessary.