Have you seen this? I think you should. Don't shoot the messenger:
Here are tangible examples of the Capitalization and Redistribution of Assets Project -- the C.R.A.P. plan at work - Tollcha!!!
After a flurry of stimulus spending, questionable projects pile up
By: Susan Ferrechio - Washington Examiner - Chief Congressional Correspondent - November 3, 2009
The $787 billion stimulus bill was passed in February and was promised as a job saver and economy booster. Here is where some of the money went:
- $300,000 for a GPS-equipped helicopter to hunt for radioactive rabbit droppings at the Hanford nuclear reservation in Washington state.
- $30 million for a spring training baseball complex for the Arizona Diamondbacks and Colorado Rockies.
- $11 million for Microsoft to build a bridge connecting its two headquarter campuses in Redmond, Wash., which are separated by a highway.
- $430,000 to repair a bridge in Iowa County, Wis., that carries 10 or fewer cars per day.
- $800,000 for the John Murtha Airport in Johnstown, Pa., serving about 20 passengers per day, to build a backup runway.
- $219,000 for Syracuse University to study the sex lives of freshmen women.
- $2.3 million for the U.S. Forest Service to rear large numbers of arthropods, including the Asian longhorned beetle, the nun moth and the woolly adelgid.
- $3.4 million for a 13-foot tunnel for turtles and other wildlife attempting to cross U.S. 27 in Lake Jackson, Fla.
- $1.15 million to install a guardrail for a persistently dry lake bed in Guymon, Okla.
- $9.38 million to renovate a century-old train depot in Lancaster County, Pa., that has not been used for three decades.
- $2.5 million in stimulus checks sent to the deceased.
- $6 million for a snow-making facility in Duluth, Minn.
- $173,834 to weatherize eight pickup trucks in Madison County, Ill.
- $20,000 for a fish sperm freezer at the Gavins Point National Fish Hatchery in South Dakota.
- $380,000 to spay and neuter pets in Wichita, Kan.
- $300 apiece for thousands of signs at road construction sites across the country announcing that the projects are funded by stimulus money.
- $1.5 million for a fence to block would-be jumpers from leaping off the All-American Bridge in Akron, Ohio.
- $1 million to study the health effects of environmentally friendly public housing on 300 people in Chicago.
- $356,000 for Indiana University to study childhood comprehension of foreign accents compared with native speech.
- $983,952 for street beautification in Ann Arbor, Mich., including decorative lighting, trees, benches and bike paths.
- $148,438 for Washington State University to analyze the use of marijuana in conjunction with medications like morphine.
- $462,000 to purchase 22 concrete toilets for use in the Mark Twain National Forest in Missouri
- $3.1 million to transform a canal barge into a floating museum that will travel the Erie Canal in New York state.
- $1.3 million on government arts jobs in Maine, including $30,000 for basket makers, $20,000 for storytelling and $12,500 for a music festival.
- $71,000 for a hybrid car to be used by student drivers in Colchester, Vt., as well as a plug-in hybrid for town workers decked out with a sign touting the vehicle's energy efficiency.
- $1 million for Portland, Ore., to replace 100 aging bike lockers and build a garage that would house 250 bicycles.
Sources: News reports, Office of the Senate Minority Leader, Office of Sen. Tom Coburn
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Friday, November 27, 2009
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4 comments:
It's a list with some silly pork barrel spending, but would the list look any better if we gave every citizen money to blow (stimulus checks)? Either method you go with, the bottom line is you want money spent to keep our consumer based economy alive.
How about not taking as much money out of people's paychecks and/or reducing government fees. That way people keep more of their own money to spend on things they truly need, like food and clothing. It isn't filtering through a system in which elected officials and bureaucrats are enriching themselves and their cronies and picking winners and losers. We need to shrink Jabba the Government.
The interesting thing about the list is to look at the money spent and divide it into the projects, then you will see the fraud being perpetrated. How many jobs are being created for this stuff and how productive is the use of this money?
We really need to start prosecuting some people, but how thorough is the government going to prosecute governmental agencies or the people, agencies, and/or organizations that they have ties to. That is the reason this whole thing is going to come to a head and things are going to be forced to happen.
It is just the natural consequences of the corrupt system we now live in, which is Hedo-Economics. Everybody thinks their project or cause is sacred, but the other guy's project needs to be cut. In the end the collapse of our currency will take care of all of this, but that is going to be horrible and 95% of the people have no clue what is happening.
Their are international incidences that are taking place every day now -- Dubai, The Moscow - St. Petersburg train incident, Citibank's implosion, the Carry Trade, Healthcare, Climategate, Afghanistan, the Copenhagen Summit... They are all interrelated by the global financial crisis and how many people even have a clue?
A strong United States used to protect us -- its citizenry -- but we have thrown it all away on consumerism and social programs.
Look back at the stimulus checks that didn't work. People either saved the money or used it to pay down debt. This proved to be an ineffective way to jump start the economy.
I agree we are over taxed, but in relatively speaking we are still one of the least taxed industrialized countries and among the lowest in Federal debt per capita.
When you say that we were protected by a "strong United States", I'm not exactly sure what you mean. I know we have maintained a market advantage by finding cheap labor (slave labor, then women, children, and immigrants, then offshore and illegal immigrants). I know we maintained an advantage by pillaging Latin American resources (everything from oil to cocoa to bananas to tin and iron). I think when we examine the "strong US" of the 20th century, you will see a country that maintained its dominance not because of ingenuity or a one-of-a-kind work ethic, but because of it's ability to find cheap sources of labor and resources.
Hound, it's not the 1930's anymore. Our neighbors have caught up a bit and we can't simply take what we want anymore. I don't think our sudden vulnerability is the result of a "weak US", it's just the evolution of the global economy. We now have to compete in a world which we once enjoyed a monopoly in every aspect.
This is getting pretty far from the original post. Going back to the list...I'm certain there's a ton of corruption in this bailout. I know that money is being funneled into personal accounts, one way or another. For me, the question is "What stimulates an economy more effectively, Federal spending or giving money to the public to spend?" Sadly, the answer might be neither. In my mind, at least the Fed is injecting money into the system, rather than individuals paying down debt or saving a stimulus check.
Mike,
Great post. Even if I don't 100% agree, I do agree with your premise on the U.S. Economic route of the past and our taking advantage of the 3rd world nations and how we are now reaping those seeds that were sown by the past generations leaders.
One thing that I may not have been articulate enough in saying is that we wouldn't be keeping our money by the government not spending it. We have already spent the tax dollars of today and probably for the next 2 generations.
I don't agree that we are under taxed, because other countries tax more. Look at how those countries are doing and their cultures. That is not the culture we should strive for. Our system was meant to be designed around the individual and by strengthening the individual, you end up strengthening the society.
How is what we are doing now going to be any different than utilizing slave labor to get Oil, gold, coffee, sugar, cocaine, marijuana, etc.
We're borrowing all of this money to inject into our economy and we all know that it isn't going to be paid back. We are borrowing it from the oligarchs of developing nations who make the money by taking advantage of those very people that they have always taken advantage of.
The question is what is going to happen when we throw up our hands, plead mea culpa, and tell the oligarchs of these countries that we can't pay them back? What happens then?
Hope for the best
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