Right now, South Carolina state agencies have received and spent about $1.1 million in federal "stimulus" funds.

When Washington mandated the $787 billion stimulus package a year ago, we were told it would create jobs and stop the unemployment rate from growing. The White House even went so far as to say the stimulus would create millions of jobs and keep the unemployment rate below 8 percent.

What a huge disappointment.

Sadly, millions of jobs have been lost since Washington passed the stimulus 11 months ago, and the national unemployment rate has steadily risen to double digits. And just days ago, we learned that the unemployment rate increased in 43 states last month, with South Carolina rising to 12.6 percent.

Right now, the federal government is set to announce the second quarterly stimulus job count - its own count of jobs funded by the stimulus.

Undoubtedly, they'll claim that the stimulus is responsible for a great number of jobs, as they did in October. (Curiously, the White House announced in October that the stimulus "saved or created" 640,000 jobs nationally, with more than 8,100 in South Carolina. But that didn't quite square with the rising joblessness. And of those jobs that actually were created, very few were in the private sector.)

Either unwittingly or by design, the White House's "job count" has been removed from reality. (As a member of a national task force created to study the issue, I've been working to apply some common sense to Washington's job count, but the White House's desire to show high numbers has outweighed the arguments of those who want an accurate measure of the stimulus impact.)

The president has worked hard to portray the country's economic troubles as the problem of his predecessor. But it was the current president, not the previous one, that pushed Congress to spend $1 trillion we don't have, increasing the federal deficit to historic levels, under the pretense of "job creation" rather than admitting his hidden goal was to expand government.

One flaw with the stimulus is the spending isn't on things that create real jobs. Rather than targeting real job growth, the bill simply showered money on favored constituencies. While some Americans might support drastically expanding government, shelling out billions more for entitlement programs like welfare and unemployment and spending borrowed money on legislators' pet projects, those things should have been decided on their own merits. Instead, they were touted as ways to alleviate the jobless problem.

Because the recession was used as an excuse to satisfy Washington's spending, millions more are out of work. During the 2010 elections, we'd do well to remind those that ask for our votes that we can't spend our way out of every problem.

Americans should be wary of members of Congress who talk about how they "brought home the bacon," and remind them our children and grandchildren are picking up the tab for the bacon.

Richard Eckstrom is the S.C. Comptroller General. The comptroller general is the chief financial officer for South Carolina and responsible for the receipt and distribution of state public money.