Clarification on the ham story - that's still some expensive ham

USDA: 760,000 pounds of ham for $1.2M

By Sam Youngman

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack pushed back Monday against reports his agency spent $1.2 million in economic stimulus funds on a two-pound ham.

Vilsack said the department actually bought 760,000 pounds of ham with funds from the $787 billion stimulus, which the GOP has attacked as wasteful spending.

“Press reports suggesting that the Recovery Act spent $1.19 million to buy ‘2 pounds of ham’ are wrong,” Vilsack said in a statement. “In fact, the contract in question purchased 760,000 pounds of ham for $1.191m, at a cost of approximately $1.50 per pound.”

Vilsack put out the statement after the Drudge Report posted several contracts from the government’s stimulus website. The contracts suggest the administration spent $1.19 million on two pounds of ham, $1.56 million for mozzarella cheese and $16.8 million on canned pork, among other items. Republicans sent blast e-mails of screenshots from the Drudge Report, highlighting the contracts as wasteful spending.

“The White House was wrong when they said there was no pork in the stimulus — and at a higher price than at the average grocery store,” said Antonia Ferrier, a spokeswoman for House Minority Leader John Boehner (Ohio).

None of the contracts indicated how much food was purchased with the stimulus funds. Vilsack’s statement said his agency bought 837,936 pounds of mozzarella, for example.

Vilsack said the food was purchased for distribution to local groups, including food banks and soup kitchens that support the needy. He said the purchases would help reduce hunger among those hardest hit by the recession.

Vilsack also said the purchases could provide “a modest economic benefit” for Americans working for food retailers, manufacturers and transportation companies, as well as ranchers and farmers.

Republicans have been pounding the administration on the stimulus, saying it has increased the size of the federal deficit while failing to spark the economy. The GOP has seized on reports unemployment reaching 9.5 percent, a figure that has exceeded the administration’s estimates from earlier this year.

Administration officials over the last week have stressed that the stimulus was always intended to be a two-year program, and that its impact will accelerate toward the end of 2009.

The White House on Monday morning began a series of online forums for businesses and governments to learn how they can adhere to what the administration says are tough transparency guidelines. Seventeen thousand signed up for the forums.

“The recovery act’s unprecedented transparency is a shared responsibility between the federal, state and local governments, as well as those companies and organizations putting recovery dollars to work,” said Rob Nabors, deputy director at the Office of Management and Budget. “As we move forward, it’s important that everyone understand precisely what they are responsible to report to the public.”

The administration seems acutely aware that some wasteful spending from the $787 billion recovery package is inevitable, as noted by Vice President Biden earlier this year.

And Earl Devaney, head of the recovery accountability and transparency board, warned that some politicians are going to take a hit when a new White House website debuts in October that shows where every dollar of the stimulus funding is being spent.

“I think politicians have got their heads around the good sides of transparency,” Devaney said in an interview with National Journal. “What they haven’t got their minds around is the downside of transparency. Come Oct. 11, there are going to be things up on that website that embarrass people, clearly. I don’t think it is one party or the other. Everyone is going to be embarrassed to some extent.”