You have got to be kidding me.. Has anyone else read some of the things in
his list? It's amazing
to me how much of the stimulus is being wasted..
Here's a few of the gems buried in the list:
26. Rather than help welfare recipients obtain jobs and escape poverty, $1 million will be used to study whether 300 people in Chicago are
healthier when living in “green” public housing facilities.
Yeah, because who cares about helping people get off welfare and out of poverty when instead we can study if living in a "green" building makes them
healthier!
27. The National Institute of Health gives Indiana University professor $356,000 to study how kids perceive foreign accents. The grant was
given to the University of Indiana, which has an endowment of more than $1.5 billion, to “test how children perceive foreign-accented speech
compared to native-accented speech.” It will also determine how such accents might influence speech development in children.
Who cares about people losing their jobs and the economy going to crap, we need to know how kids perceive foreign accents! That is what is truly
important here!
29. Michigan will spend $983,952 for streetscaping in Ann Arbor. The city plans to install “decorative sidewalks and crosswalks,
planters, landscaping, decorative lighting, trees, trash receptacles, benches and bike loops.”
Well at least all the jobless citizens will have something pretty to look at when they're living on the streets after losing their homes.
38. Yale and the University of Connecticut are receiving $850,000 in stimulus for research “to study how paying attention improves
performance of difficult tasks.”
Do we really need a study to tell us that we do better when we pay attention and focus? Really? Has the stupidity level really gotten that high?
65. Washington, North Carolina is using stimulus funds to pay for “project-funding manager” whose job it is to secure even more stimulus
funds. The City hopes to pay the new “projectfunding manager” to identify available Stimulus money using a $40,234 grant from the Edward Byrne
Memorial Justice Assistance Grant program which, in turn, received funding through the stimulus bill.
Absolutely brilliant. Instead of spending that money on, oh I don't know creating jobs or fixing roads, lets spend money to find out how to get more
money.
92. U.S.-Canada border crossings that average less than 2 passenger cars per day and 2-3 trucks a month get millions from stimulus funds.
U.S.-Mexico border crossings with 20,000 vehicle crossings per day get nothing.
I thought the stimulus was supposed to stimulate the economy, not go to study grants, landscaping, and fixing things that don't need fixed.
Apparently I was wrong, and the idiots that be are having a field day.
[edit on 17-6-2009 by Jenna]