Like a carnival barker, Vice President Joe Biden continues to ask the nation to step right up and see with its very own eyes the most amazing, spectacular, reality defying $5 billion Weatherization Assistance Program. Heavy emphasis on reality defying.

A day after Biden blew through New Hampshire announcing the stimulus plan to weatherize 600,000 low-income homes was in high gear and A-OK, the Associated Press is reporting what the Vice President isn't telling Americans. As has been reported on extensively by Texas Watchdog, the AP story says that in its 18-month history of funding, training and regulatory delays, mismanagement and suspect work, weatherization is widely considered one of the least successful of all of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act programs.

Among the many problems, the story highlights the shoddy work done by contractors for Sheltering Arms Senior Services of Houston, first reported by Texas Watchdog. Alaska has failed to weatherize a single home. And a contractor in California who received $3 million to caulk homes failed to give two dozen of its workers any weatherizing training.

The weatherization program in Biden's home state of Delaware has been suspended since May as federal auditors probed for possible fraud. 

And while Biden exudes endless optimism about the program meeting its targets, the top 15 state programs responsible for $3 billion or 60 percent of the program's $5 billion total have so far spent $793 million or just 26.4 percent of their total funding allotment.

Contact Mark Lisheron at 512-299-2318 or mark@texaswatchdog.org.

Photo of a carnival sign by flickr user SoStark, used via a Creative Commons license.