The connection between federal stimulus spending and job creation was suspect from the start. The $787 billion federal spending program rushed through Congress early last year was promoted by congressional Democrats and President Barack Obama as targeting "shovel ready" infrastructure projects and as a surefire way to create, or save, jobs.

But months ago, those claims were challenged and discredited by independent analyses that found inflated figures and many errors in job reporting to the official stimulus-money job-tracking Web site.

Examination by Associated Press reporters around the country and other groups found many bogus or inflated job-creation reports. In some cases, stimulus money was used to give raises to existing workers, and somehow that was counted as new jobs. In other cases, a few temporary jobs were created by stimulus spending, but the government Web site wrongly reflected the creation of permanent jobs. Even last summer, the false claims of jobs created or saved was estimated to be in the tens of thousands.

Initially, the White House argued that it still was early in the process and that errors would be corrected. Still, critics continued to find bogus reports in the job reports — including the fact that most of the stimulus spending went to states to help plug budget shortfalls and that "shovel ready" transportation jobs amounted to only a tiny sliver of the stimulus spending.

Early White House claims of jobs saved included hundreds of thousands of teachers who it said could have lost their jobs without federal money to help states balance budgets. But, in reality, few, if any, of those jobs were really at risk.

Just last week, the linkage between jobs and stimulus spending became even more suspect. According to the Associated Press, new and less-stringent rules covering job-creation claims were "quietly published last month in a memorandum to federal agencies."

The change, according to the AP report, will make it impossible to track the number of jobs created or saved by the $787 billion in stimulus money. Yet, politicians, including Obama and congressional Demo-crats, continue to boast about jobs created or saved by the controversial spending program.

The new job-reporting guidelines mean that recipients of federal money no longer have to demonstrate that a job would have been lost without the stimulus money. The AP story also warned about jobs being double-counted, since jobs claimed to have been created in one quarter also will be counted as a new job in the next quarterly report.

A direct linkage between federal spending and job creation always has been suspect. But the massive stimulus spending plan was sold as a way to boost employment in the recession. Obama set high expectations, vowing accountability and promising a Web-based system that would accurately track job creation.

In reality, accurate tracking of jobs directly tied to stimulus funding has proven difficult, if not impossible. And that has hurt White House credibility, leaving Obama vulnerable to criticism that he has abandoned his early pledge of accurate accounting of stimulus spending.

Despite all the evidence that job creation figures tied to stimulus spending are highly suspect, an Associated Press article in Wednesday's Butler Eagle reported that the White House was again praising the effectiveness of stimulus spending. The subhead summarized White House claims of 2 million jobs created or saved. But numerous reports reveal those claims to be false and unsupportd by facts.

It's remarkable that the White House could make such claims just a few days after news reports revealed that the new, weakened job-reporting rules made linking stimulus spending to creating or saving a specific number of jobs impossible.

Clearly, the job-creation claims are being made to deflect criticism of the controversial spending program.

News reports on many examples of bogus job reports and now a weakened criteria should cause the public to be very skeptical of any job claims linked to stimulus spending. And if news reports are not enough, people need only look around their own communities and ask if they know of anyone who has a job because of stimulus spending or any company that has hired new workers due to federal stimulus money.

Spending billions of dollars of taxpayer funds will stimulate some demand and fund some employment. But there is no evidence, outside the Obama administration, to support White House claims of 2 million jobs created or saved.

The Obama White House staked out an admirable position early last year when it said stimulus spending would be transparent and jobs created would be tracked as proof of the massive spending program's effectiveness. But that promise has been abandoned — and White House job claims, which are doubtless inflated, appear to be based on politics, not verifiable facts.