Worst Stumilus "Project"

In a recent trip to Port Townsend, I was taken aback buy what I concider the worst use of Stimulus money.

They put two Round Abouts in - WTF

I really liked the "Someone should be FIRED" sign hanging from one of the affected bussiness.

Any other votes for the biggest waste of "Stimulus" money.


http://stimulus.org/

Whether or not you like them, more round-abouts are coming. And whether or not you like them, they generally benefite traffic flow. Usually, the only problem with them are that is a percentage of the population that are too mentally incompetent to use them effectively.

My problem is not with the actual roundabouts, actually don't mind them. It just seems in particular that the first one on the way out of town is unneeded, perhaps "tight" .

My favorite stimulus project occurred on the Tulalip Reservation where my buddy tells me they put sidewalks in very low traffic residential areas where nobody really wanted them. Then, a couple of weeks later, tore the sidewalks they had just put in out and put them back in slightly different. Not sure why they had to tear them out or who screwed up and more than doubled the cost by requiring the tear out/re-do. At least there are no roundabouts there....yet.

Curious if you have a source for the 1.3T in un-used buildings Hank?

Wouldn't suprise me but that seems like a whole lot of RE.

Those round-abouts are a liberal plot to trap Tea Partiers in an infinite loop.

$308 million for a joint clean energy venture with BP

The following pollutants are provided by DUKE-AVERA-ADAGE in their application for permit to the Department of Environmental Protection for a similar type of plant in Florida.

247 Tons Per Year – Particulate Matter 239 Tons Per Year – Particulate Matter 10 233 Tons Per Year – Particulate Matter 2.5 249 Tons Per Year – NOx (Nitrogen Oxide) 246 Tons Per Year – SO2 (Sulfur Dioxide) 248 Tons Per Year – CO (Carbon Monoxide) 40 Tons Per Year – H2SO4 – (Sulfuric Acid Mist) 63 Tons Per Year – VOC (Volatile Organic Compounds) 29 Tons Per Year – F (Fluorides)[17]

That's not the worst one I could think of- if it were in my back yard, I guess it would be a bigger issue for me.

Putting it into perspective- that could create some long term decent paying jobs in Shelton. Helping stimulate the economy of that area, as well as putting a by product of one of the areas other industries to use.


Providing power to Shelton and perhaps Elma and Mcleary.

(that would actually seem like the point of the Stumilus, investing tax dollars for the long term improvement of America)

Wonder how that compares to say "Clean Coal"

I was partial to the 200 million to teach Africans how to wash their peckers in attempt to curb the spread of the HIV. So how exactly does that help the American economy?

No doubt about it, at least you are aware of your position.

If they make one to Cal it had better be one way....southbound!

BTW, Cal received $2.35 billion of that $8 billion for rail.

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.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 16th, 2009 at 12:30 pm and is filed under Blog Posts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

http://mnfmi.org/2009/06/16/turtle-underpasses-300-road-signs-and-rustys-backwater-saloon/

For what, more govt buildings? No money. 4.6 million to clean up the nets in PS and it only created 35 jobs for about 18 months. About 130 grand for each job for 18 months and the gillnetters are losing nets in the same locations again.

I wonder how many union bus drivers they could hire if they didnt piss all that money away on the light rail, the tunnel, deaths in the tunnel, injurys from the train, auto damages from the train and its usually not full. Plus you have the train from Tacoma everyday. Poor Christine. She is going to look like a fiscal conservative.

It took WWII to get us going after 1929 and the size of the economy was how much smaller than now?

Heres one solution.
http://www.freep.com/article/20101017/NEWS07/10170423/British-government-to-lay-off-600-000