Turtle Underpasses, $300 Road Signs and Rusty’s Backwater Saloon
June 16th, 2009 by Adam Axvig
Today, Senator Tom Coburn, a Republican from Oklahoma, released a report critical of 100 stimulus projects, ranging from a bridge to Rusty’s Backwater Saloon to a billion dollar “fossil energy research and development” project. The report highlights “100 of the worst examples of waste in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act” according to a press release from the Senator’s office. highlighted in the report are ten projects that Coburn believes to be the most egregious including two from Oklahoma:
1. $1.5 million in “free” stimulus money for a new wastewater treatment plant results in higher utility costs for residents of Perkins, Oklahoma.
2. $1 billion for FutureGen in Mattoon, Illinois is the “biggest earmark of all time” for a power plant that may never work.
3. $15 million for “shovel-ready” repairs to little-used bridges in rural Wisconsin are given priority over widely used bridges that are structurally deficient.
4. $800,000 for little-used John Murtha Airport in Johnstown, Pennsylvania airport to repave a back-up runway; the ‘Airport for Nobody’ Has Already Received Tens of Millions in Taxpayer dollars.
5. $3.4 million for a wildlife “eco-passage” in Florida to take animals safely under a busy roadway.
6. Nevada non-profit gets $2 million weatherization contract after recently being fired for same type of work.
7. $1.15 million for installation of a new guard rail for the non-existent Optima Lake in Oklahoma.
8. Nearly $10 million to renovate an abandoned train station that hasn’t been used in 30 years.
9. 10,000 dead people get stimulus checks, but the Social Security Administration blames a tough deadline.
10. Town of Union, New York, encouraged to spend a $578,000 grant it did not request for a homelessness problem it claims it does not have.
Coburn has long held a reputation as one of the Senate’s more fiscally conservative, despite voting for the financial industry bailout last year.
The report can be viewed here.
Senator Coburn’s site can be found here.
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