This Week with The Chicowitz: 03/08/10

Baby Boomer HeadQuarters (BBHQ)

This Week with The Chicowitz -- March 8, 2010

Stimulus - Year 1

Last February, the hope-and-changers assured us that there were at least 87,000 "shovel ready" jobs, just waiting for our tax dollars to stimulate them into prosperity. Thirteen months later we can look in the rear view mirror, see where that money went, and how well our tax dollars have been spent.

Recently I took a look backward at the first year of the Obama administration. (You can read the essay here.) So I thought it would be appropriate this week to take a look backward at the first year of President Obama's largest legislative accomplishment in his first term, the $787 stimulus bill.

When asked how the administration came up with the number $787 billion, a spokesman admitted that they just used what sounded good. Not exactly a confidence-builder, but at least it was candid.

The actual number varied, depending on the source, but the average was about $800 billion. The Washington Post produced a chart depicting how the money was scheduled to be spent -- it'll make your head spin; but go ahead, take a look:

-- http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/graphic/2009/02/01/GR2009020100154.html

The stimulus package of 2009 passed with 3 Republican votes.

The president claimed that the stimulus package was absolutely essential in order to save the economy from collapsing into an abyss from which we might never recover. It would keep the unemployment rate from going over 8 percent, and save or create 2 million jobs.

So, What Happened?

The Obama administration spent $18 million to create an Internet web site that would allow citizens to identify where the money was being spent and jobs that were created (or saved). But the data on the web site has proved to be so unreliable that it is of little use. Jobs created (or saved) were merely estimates; money was allegedly allocated to congressional districts that do not even exist. Again, not exactly a confidence-builder.

We're a year into the stimulus, recovery, save-the-country effort; and unemployment is around 10 percent. Initially the White House claimed that its policies created 600,000 jobs in 2009. The Congressional Budget Office said that the stimulus package created up to 2 million jobs in the fourth quarter alone.

A great deal of the money allocated to save or create jobs went to state government, which used that money to keep state workers from being laid off. Stimulative? You make the call.

But the country lost four million jobs last year.

The actual cost of the stimulus package is now estimated to be $850 billion, though more than half of the money has yet to be spent. (They're saving it for the election season.)

Anyway, let's see where some of that money went:

$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 no more than 10 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.
$3.4 million for a 13-foot tunnel for turtles and other wildlife attempting to cross U.S. 27 in Lake Jackson, Fla.
$1.15 million to install a guardrail for a persistently dry lake bed in Guymon, Okla.
$9.38 million to renovate a century-old train depot in Lancaster County, Pa., that has not been used for three decades.
$2.5 million in stimulus checks sent to the deceased.
$6 million for a snow-making facility in Duluth, Minn.
$173,834 to weatherize eight pickup trucks in Madison County, Ill.
$20,000 for a fish sperm freezer at the Gavins Point National Fish Hatchery in South Dakota.
$380,000 to spay and neuter pets in Wichita, Kan.
$300 apiece for thousands of signs at road construction sites across the country announcing that the projects are funded by stimulus money.
$1.5 million for a fence to block would-be jumpers from leaping off the All-American Bridge in Akron, Ohio.
$1 million to study the health effects of environmentally friendly public housing on 300 people in Chicago.
$356,000 for Indiana University to study childhood comprehension of foreign accents compared with native speech.
$983,952 for street beautification in Ann Arbor, Mich., including decorative lighting, trees, benches and bike paths.
$148,438 for Washington State University to analyze the use of marijuana in conjunction with medications like morphine.
$462,000 to purchase 22 concrete toilets for use in the Mark Twain National Forest in Missouri
$3.1 million to transform a canal barge into a floating museum that will travel the Erie Canal in New York state.
$1.3 million on government arts jobs in Maine, including $30,000 for basket makers, $20,000 for storytelling and $12,500 for a music festival.
$71,000 for a hybrid car to be used by student drivers in Colchester, Vt., as well as a plug-in hybrid for town workers decked out with a sign touting the vehicle's energy efficiency.
$1 million for Portland, Ore., to replace 100 aging bike lockers and build a garage that would house 250 bicycles.

This, from a president who promised he would go through spending bills, line by line, to make sure that taxpayer dollars were spent wisely.

Perhaps his definition of "wisely" is a tad different that mine. But, what do I know?

Energy Unbounded

Last year the president said, "If you allocate money to weatherize homes, the homeowner gets the benefit of lower energy bills. You right away put people back to work, many of whom in the construction industry and in the housing industry are out of work right now." It is a step to "a new energy future."

Five billion dollars was spent on weatherization in the stimulus bill.

But in January, 2010, the Department of Energy inspector general said, "only 2 of the 10 highest funded recipients completed more than 2 percent of planned units." New York had completed 280 out of 45,400 planned units as of December, Texas had completed 0 of 33,908, and California 12 out of 43,400. That's 292 homes in three states with a total population of roughly 80 million.

"Right away" - ???

Editor Rich Lowry recently focused on the president's plan to save energy and grow the economy.

Prior to the stimulus, weatherization funds were not subject to the Davis-Bacon Act, a union-friendly law that mandates government pay contractors the "prevailing wage." Slavishly committed to the unions, Democrats made Davis-Bacon apply to the new weatherization funds, and the Department of Energy spent the past year trying to determine the prevailing wage in thousands of counties. At least the program kept someone busy.
More homes will get weatherized over time, but even Obama admits the folly of the concept of "shovel ready" projects, a damning indictment of his own credulousness in overselling the stimulus. But he remains an enthusiast for the creation of "green jobs," a politically driven industrial policy sure to pile boondoggle atop boondoggle.

-- http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/03/07/the_home_weatherization_lie_104663.html

The Last Word

Vice President Joe Biden expressed his approval in a letter to his boss: "The work that you set us out to do a year ago is going well. I believe that we have served the American people well."

And you want to turn over nearly 20% of the economy to the government -- to run and control your health care?

What do you think?

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Baby Boomer HeadQuarters (BBHQ) This Week with The Chicowitz -- March 8, 2010 Stimulus - Year 1

Baby Boomer HeadQuarters (BBHQ)

This Week with The Chicowitz -- March 8, 2010

Stimulus - Year 1