Barb’s Blog

From Fox News

Federal agencies are spending stimulus money at the rate of $196 million an hour. And they will do so every hour for the next eight months until a September 30, 2010, deadline.

“When you put that kind of money out the door that fast, there’s a possibility of $55 billion dollars of waste, fraud and abuse connected with it,” Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, said Thursday before a Senate Finance Committee hearing examining the lack of oversight in the $878 billion dollar economic stimulus bill passed a year ago.

The dollars and the amounts are starting not to mean anything anymore I think…Anyway, have a look and see if these are the kind of “jobs” America needs. Most, from my point of view, are questionable and that is putting it mildly. Fraud and Abuse just begins to cover it.

• $233,000 to the University of California at San Diego to study why Africans vote. Jobs created: 12, but seven of those are Africans in Africa.
• In Nevada, $2 million in stimulus money built a new fire station, but because of budget cuts, the county can’t afford to hire firefighters to work there.
• Penn State University got $1.5 million to study plant fossils in Argentina. Of 5 jobs created, 2 belong to Argentines.
• Researchers the State University of New York at Buffalo got $389,000 to pay 100 Buffalonians $45 each to record how much malt liquor they drink — and how much pot smoke each day. Consumption is then reported via an automated phone hotline. Cost per job: almost $200,000.
• The Obama administration is spending $5 billion to weatherize homes. But one Texas county spent $4 million to weatherize just 47 homes. That’s $78,000 per house. Each retrofit is supposed to save homeowners $500 a year in energy costs. That means taxpayers will recoup their investment in 156 years, long after the home is probably torn down.
• Two Arizona universities got almost $1 million dollars so 3 grad students can study how ants work. That’s more than $300,000 per job.
• Companies that raise tropical fish, shellfish, catfish, alligators and even turtles qualify for $50 million in tax money to buy fish food.
• North Carolina public schools received $4.4 million to hire math and literacy coaches, not for students, but teachers. That’s 64 people paid $70,000 each to teach teachers how to teach reading and math.
• $6 million in stimulus money to a California contractor under federal investigation for overcharging San Diego for cleanup after the 2007 wildfires
• A Denver developer received $13 million in tax credits to help build a senior housing complex despite being sued as a slumlord for running decrepit, rodent-infested apartment buildings in San Francisco.
• Kentucky gave $24 million to a contractor on trial on for bribery.
• An aerospace company received $15 million to monitor water quality in a Ventura County creek it was already fined for polluting.