Make sure to check out the Pork Barrel Corruption Blog for more.

The Coburn Pork Report has some particularly egregious items today that need to be highlighted in the main blog.  Most of the time when I highlight a stimulus project, people argue that the project could create jobs and contribute to infrastructure in some way.   Using this train of thought even a project that sounds ridiculous might be justified.  The toilet article from yesterday is a good example.

However, today’s examples are up there with the worst.  I don’t see how it can be argued that the following projects are justified, even using stimulus logic.

The first is a $700,000 plus stimulus project paying malt liquor and weed users to call a phone number and discuss their daily habits on the phone.  For making that simple call, they get $45.  Really.

I drink 40s from time to time, gimme some of that money.  How in the world does this stimulate anything except malt liquor and weed purchases?  Could you come up with a program more self defeating?  Someone, somewhere, actually had the idea: “Hey, let’s learn more about addiction and drug use by giving the users more resources to abuse their habits.”

This project is being funded by the National Institute of Health, which you might remember funded the infamous “why men don’t like condoms” study.   Apparently, they’ve got a lot of extra money and are now using stimulus money to fund projects that don’t even create  jobs.  Stimulus money is supposed to encourage job growth and improve infrastructure.  This project is an epic fail on both points.

Next, Iowa paper pushers are forcing cities to spend thousands of dollars to evaluate whether decrepit sewers should be maintained as historic monuments.  This is so stupid it hurts.  A good rule of thumb: if its used to funnel feces, it shouldn’t be considered historic.  A colleague of mine made the excellent point that some Roman structures once carried poop and are now considered historic.  My rejoinder, “Iowa isn’t Rome.”  When Iowa conquers half the world I’ll pay deference to their excrement.

One of the biggest problems with the stimulus is that its funds aren’t getting used fast enough.  These bureaucrats, with their ridiculous demands that cities evaluate the historical value of their poop chutes, have created a scenario where Iowa may have to return stimulus money slated for infrastructure upgrades because projects won’t meet a February 17, 2010 deadline.  Iowans who would otherwise be employed by these projects can only view these delays as surreal.

Another example, a transit company was given over $200,000 of stimulus money to buy automatic wheel polishers.  This isn’t stimulus because the amount of jobs new wheel polishers would create is probably next to nothing, they’re automatic after all.  However, these wheel polishers aren’t even from the United States, they were bought from the Land Down Under.  We paid $200,000 for wheel polishers made in Australia.  This does nothing to help a recovery.  How much do wheel polishers cost anyway?  $200,000 seems a lot.

Today’s last example is also transit related.  $2 million was alloted for four buses to move people from New Hampshire to Boston.  Two of the buses are just replacing old buses.  They create no new jobs.  The two new buses will create at most five positions.  That’s like $400,000 a job. So much cash for just a few jobs is bad, but it gets worse.  It turns out, the company doesn’t even need the money or the buses.  They would have received money from other government programs for the vehicles and ridership has declined with the economy to the point that  new bus purchases are unnecessary.

So will the company have to pay the government back at some point?  Nope, riding the buses is completely free.  Let’s review: The government gives $2 million of your money to buy buses, in return the company charges absolutely nothing and creates a pitiful amount of jobs.  Sounds like a good deal for everyone but the taxpayers.

Let’s put up a sign on the Capitol and the White House.  It will say, “Free Money, Apply Inside!”  We’re already throwing money away,  the sign would make it explicit.

Related Articles

1. Stimulus Money Literally Getting Dumped On
2. Pork Report – July 27, 2009
3. Exposing Biden’s Lies About the Stimulus
4. “Stimulus Logic” Hardly Logical
5. How to Lose a Debate