Will it ever end? It seems that every time we pick up a newspaper or listen to a pundit’s commentary there is yet another gaff by the Obama regime. Now it is coming to light that literally millions of dollars have been wasted by capricious stimulus programs. Senators McCain (remember him?) and Tom Coburn issued a report the other day listing the top 100 of these misguided, misdirected and questionable grants.
Now of course the Regime was quick to fire back saying that as far they knew, ten of the questionable programs had either been cancelled or never got off the ground.
Are you kidding me? Ten? That means they are admitting to 90% of the remainder. And who knows what McCain/Coburn missed. As I’ve written in the past, this is truly the gang that couldn’t shoot straight and missing a target as large as the entire American economy is pure amateurism (sic?).
But let’s face it, we all know it, there isn’t a single member of the regime cabinet that has ever held a real job except maybe Turbo Tax Geithner and he was a stock broker, I think. So let’s take a look at the top ten. Read them and remember them on November 2nd and throw the bums out!
- Over half a million dollars was spent to replace the windows in a visitor center at Mount St. Helens. The only problem is that center closed nearly three years ago due to lack of use.
2. Three-quarters of a million dollars went to the University of North Carolina at Charlotte to create a computerized dance-choreography program. The university’s overhead is 44 percent of the grant, the report stated.
3. $62 million was allocated for the North Shore Connector, which provides light rail transportation to a casino and two sports stadiums in Pittsburgh. In February 2009 Gov. Ed Rendell, a Democrat, called the project a “tragic mistake.”
4. $7.3 million for the construction of two fire stations in San Antonio, Texas. The senators report the city was about to build the stations itself when the federal funding came along. Since then, compliance with federal regulations has caused so many delays no one is sure now when the stations will be built, they say.
5. Some $1.2 million was set aside to convert an abandoned train station into a museum in Glassboro, N.J. Federal authorities provided $250,000 to buy the structure in 2002, but little or no work has been done there. Now they’re going to invest another $1 million to change the graffiti-riddled station, which was built in 1860, into a “museum and welcome center.”
6. Nearly $2 million is going to the California Academy of Sciences to send researchers to island in the Southwest Indian Ocean and to East Africa to photograph ants. The pictures will be posted on a Web site devoted to ants.
7. A $1.8 million road project in Ohio is being built so close to a pastor’s house that it has cracked his foundation, and a massive crane has struck his front porch twice.
8. In 2004, the federal government provided $661,000 to refurbish the old Fitchburg Furnace building in Fitchburg, Ky. The treasurer of the Friends of Fitchburg organization, however, says much of that money was lost due to “bad stewardship of money.” Now, thanks to the stimulus, the project is receiving another $350,000.
9. In Kern County, Calif., the government is investing $308 million for a power plant to “generate more environmentally friendly electricity by capturing carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels.” It’s hard to see how the money will stimulate the economy … groundbreaking isn’t scheduled until December 2011.
10. Folks in Boynton, Okla., are perplexed because their town won $89,298 to build a quarter-mile long sidewalk. The new sidewalk leads to a ditch, and replaces one still in good condition that was built just five years ago.
The report also highlights two controversial studies of primates. Georgia State University researchers won $677,462 to compare how monkeys and chimpanzees respond to “distributional inequality” and “unfairness.” Another $72,623 went to Wake Forest University to study how monkeys react under the influence of cocaine.
There you have it folks, your democratic stimulus program in action. And guess what? This one hasn’t worked so they want to try it again. Don’t let them!
