The nearly trillion dollar stimulus that had to be passed immediately but that very little of has been spent (as a percentage) is being wasted and has done little in the way of providing jobs. Obama told us we needed to pass it NOW or unemployment would go above 8.5% and now it is nearly 10%. The purpose of the stimulus was to pay off special interest groups for supporting Democrats. Here are a few items that stimulus money was spent on. Please feel free to chime in and tell me how they stimulated the economy:
– $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. Washington Examiner
Money for a helicopter to look for rabbit turds, money to study the sex lives of college women (I know a bunch of guys who would do that for free), money for the Murtha airport (a money pit), money to build a bridge between two Microsoft buildings and money to build a stadium for baseball teams.
What does any of this have to do with stimulus? In addition, why are we taxpayers building anything for Microsoft? Bill Gates is one of the wealthiest people in the country. He gives away more money than anyone can imagine and we have to pay for a bridge for his buildings? Why are we paying for a baseball stadium? Can’t the wealthy team owners or the taxpayers of the state pay for it? Most of us will never go there to watch a ball game and we damn sure will not get any revenue the teams generate so why are we paying for their stadium?
Why are we using stimulus money to mess with arthropods?
This is the kind of waste and abuse that one expects and knows will happen when government is involved. This is the kind of waste we see in Medicare and it is the kind of waste we will see in the government takeover of health care.
We still have quite a bit of unspent stimulus money and we should put a halt to further spending.
None of these items can be defended. None of them created any jobs (not lasting ones) and none of this spending is what America had in mind.
The Democrats always talk about Republicans taking care of the rich. I fail to see how the Democrats are any different when they spend OUR money to build something for Bill Gates or baseball teams.
Vote all of them out of office in 2010.
This kind of spending is irresponsible and should not be tolerated.
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