Stimulus Bill: the latest receipt on Wasteful Spending

As we close in on the election, I’ve noticed Democrats aren’t touting their February 2009 Stimulus Bill, which as revised by the Congressional Budget Office, cost $862 billion.
In December 2009, the LA Times reported $157,8 billion in stimulus funds had been spent to save 640,320 jobs. Wow, that’s only $246,346 per job!
Woohoo! We redirected, borrowed, or printed nearly $250,000 to save a job.
Isn’t the government efficient?
In October of 2009 the government released the data that the “average payroll employee (for October 2009) was $59,867. The government spends FOUR TIMES the average salary to “Create a Job”. Using their ridiculous figures and the average payroll – that would have been 2.4 million jobs.
So this was the recent headline:
NIH, spent $823,200 of economic stimulus funds in 2009 on a study by a UCLA research team to teach uncircumcised African men how to wash their genitals after having sex. (read http://deskofbrian.com/2010/09/how-have-we-spent-the-stimulus-823000-went-to-african-genital-washing-program/)
Let’s review what we’ve spent some of this money on…
Mapping Radioactive Rabbit Feces                                                       $300,000
University of Hawaii: Honey Bee Study                                               $210,000
Oregon Fishermen:Lost Crab Pot Recovery                                      $700,000
Mark Penn (repay Hillary Clinton campaign debt)                       $5,970,000
Univ. of Arizona/Ariz State: Ant Research                                          $970,000
Connecticut insect research                                                                    $2,300,000
Duluth, Minn. Snow Making Facility (15th in yearly snowfall)       $6 million
Minn. (Heart of Beast) socially conscious Puppet Show                   $100,000
Penn State fossil research in Argentina                                               $1,570,000
Lockheed Martin: study supersonic corporate Jet                        $4,700,000
Washington State visitor center(closed in 2007) repairs                 $554,763
National Institute of Health:study college students sex lives          $219,000
California College students to poll African election patterns          $230,000
Study how cocaine effects monkeys’ brains                                             $147,000
Study on ‘Why Young Men Don’t Like Condoms’                                    $221,000
Tennessee Mall: Geothermal heating (mall’s nearly empty)        $5,000,000
Study Buffalo, NY residents’ drinking habits                                          $400,000
Boynton, Oklahoma: replace 5 year old sidewalks                                  $90,000
Sunset Strip renovation                                                                                $1,000,000
Lancaster, PA Train Station(not used for decades) Renovation   $9.38 million
Facebook privacy study                                                                                  $498,000
Turtle Tunnel in Tallahassee, Florida                                                     $3,400,000
Wichita, Kansas: Spay and Neuter pets                                               $380,000 – this includes an undisclosed amount for roads as well
Georgia Tech University study on improvised music                      $762,372
“Dance Draw” – UNC: Charlotte (interactive dance)                           $750,000
Land purchase Arizona and Colorado Spring Training Facilities    $30 Million
Connecticut WNBA team’s practice facility                                             $50 million
Light rail tunnel under the Allegheny River in Pittsburgh              $62.5 million
Fire Stations in San Antonio (2 stations)                                                  $73 million

Read more: http://deskofbrian.com/2010/09/stimulus-bill-the-latest-receipt-on-wasteful-spending/

www.DeskofBrian.com