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

Florida Rail not generating Florida jobs

Originally posted at Desk of Brian, DeskofBrian.com: http://sites.google.com/site/thedeskofbrian/hot-topics/florida-high-speed-rail/floridarailgeneratingjobsnotfloridajobsthough

The Kansas City Business Journal reports: Florida's rail received the $1.25 billion from the Federal government for the initial phase to service Tampa to Orlando. The Stimulus Bill funds were thought to create jobs, but this project will be employing companies from other states.

HNTB Corp, a Kansas City firm, will join Wilbur Smith Assoc. from South Carolina under the DOT's newly created "Florida Rail Enterprises."

The article states: "The HNTB/WSA team will provide overall program support and oversight
for planning, design, public outreach, vehicle and systems integration, operations, construction, project controls and procurement of all contracts for the Florida high-speed rail program."

"It’s exciting to see the return on the investment we made in
high-speed rail. I’m confident that our momentum will
continue to grow as more funding is released."
- Peter Gertler, HNTB’s high-speed rail services chairman

No surprise that Peter Gertler is an Obama supporter and made a donation to his campaign. Wilbur Smith Assoc. is a firm advocating the Obama agenda -- from their site is a link "Five Ways to Speak Like Obama" and tons of links to story defending the President, his agenda and the Democrats.

The Stimulus Bill has proved time and time again that it was more about fulfilling political promises and deepening alliances than creating jobs.

Charlie Crist and Florida supporters of this Rail program should be ashamed of themselves having misled Floridians, cramming this down our throats and not helping the unemployed in their own state.

http://kansascity.bizjournals.com/kansascity/stories/2010/03/15/daily40.html

http://fundrace.huffingtonpost.com/neighbors.php?type=name&lname=Gertler&fname=Peter