After spending hundreds of billions of dollars to stimulate the economy, the remarkable turnaround has be conspicuously absent. We have seen in the past that the government is quite adept at wasteful spending. The recent “stimulus” was no exception.
I noticed a link on the Drudge Report of the 100 worst stimulus projects. It’s a report that was released by Senators Tom Coburn and John McCain. In it, there is a list of projects that received stimulus funds in order to help save our floundering economy. You can read the report for yourself here: Summertime Blues: 100 stimulus projects that give taxpayers the blues (PDF). Below is a list of some of my favorites.
#1 – $554,763 to replace windows in a visitors center that was closed in 2007 (Amboy, WA). Of course, that was only three years ago. It’s practically still open, right?
#2 – $762,372 for interactive dance software development (Charlotte, NC). Good thing they spent money to prop up the hard hit industry of dance simulation.
#6 – $1.9 million to “listen to” ants (San Francisco, CA). Nobody listens to voters anymore, so hey, why not start listening to ants?
#10 – $89,298 to replace new sidewalks with newer sidewalks that lead to a ditch (Boynton, OK). Is this in some way a metaphor for all of this stimulus spending?
#18 – $762,372 for a Georgia Tech assistant professor to study improvised music (Atlanta, GA). If we could just figure out these jam bands, surely then the economy will rebound.
#20 – $677,462 to study monkey and chimpanzee responses to inequity (Atlanta, GA). These monkeys need to learn that life isn’t fair. Then again, I guess we’ve got a lot of people who need to learn this too.
#23 – $199,862 to help Siberians lobby Russian policymakers (San Francisco, CA). It’s important that the people have their voices heard in Russia. Now if we could figure out how to make our representatives listen to us.
#25 – $298,543 for weather predictions on other planets (San Antonio, TX). Hey, I wonder what the weather’s going to be like on our vacation… to Mars.
#32 – $25.8 million for public relations (New York, NY). You know, so they can figure out how to convince us this spending is a good idea.
#36 – $712,883 for scientists to create a joke machine (Evanston, IL). I think all these jokes are automatically posted on the Drudge Report. No wait, that’s actual news. Good thing I guess, because it’s really not funny.
#39 – $1.2 million to research how to market video games to the elderly (Raleigh, NC and Atlanta, GA). Well, when the government starts rationing health care, at least grandma will still have her video games.
#75 – $600,001 to look for meteorites in Antarctica (Cleveland, OH). Maybe we can find some magic job-creating meteorites.
#85 – $25,000 for the International Accordion Festival (San Antonio, TX). Nothing stimulates the economy like a good polka.
#89 – $1.1 million to coordinate traffic lights (Sebring, FL). That’s why so many people have been losing their jobs! They were getting stopped at too many lights which made them late, causing them to be fired.
#94 – $442,950 to restore a restored lighthouse (Jupiter, FL). I guess they were just being thorough.
I know all of these seem like crazy ideas if your goal is to stimulate the economy. But they could have done something really crazy like cut taxes and let people keep more of their hard-earned money. Whoa! What a radical idea. The people can’t be trusted with their own money, the government needs to collect and redistribute it, right? Sadly, that’s what’s happening. It’s high time we wake up, if we haven’t already, and see what’s going on while there may yet be time to change things.
