Have you seen the stimulus bill hard at work?

After a flurry of stimulus spending, questionable projects pile up
By: Susan Ferrechio
Chief Congressional Correspondent
November 3, 2009

The $787 billion stimulus bill was passed in Feb and was promised as a job saver and economy booster. Here’s where some of the money went:

– $300,000 for a GPS-equipped helicopter to hunt for radioactive rabbit droppings at the Hanford nuclear reservation in WA state.

– $30 million for a spring training baseball complex for the AZ Diamondbacks and CO Rockies.

– $11 million for Microsoft to build a bridge connecting its 2 headquarter campuses in Redmond, Wash., which are separated by a highway.

– $430,000 to repair a bridge in IA County, Wis., that carries ten or fewer cars per day.

– $800,000 for the John Murtha Airport in Johnstown, Pa., serving about twenty passengers per day, to build a backup runway.

– $219,000 for Syracuse University to study the sex lives of freshmen women.

– $2.3 million for the United States Forest Service to rear large numbers of arthropods, including the Asian longhorned beetle, the nun moth and the woolly adelgid.

– $3.4 million for a Thirteen foot tunnel for turtles and other wildlife attempting to cross United States twenty seven in Lake Jackson, Florida

– $1.15 million to install a guardrail for a persistently dry lake bed in Guymon, Okla.

– $9.38 million to renovate a century-old train depot in Lancaster County, Pa., that has not been used for 3 decades.

– $2.5 million in stimulus checks sent to the deceased.

– $6 million for a snow-making facility in Duluth, Minn.

– $173,834 to weatherize 8 pickup trucks in Madison County, Ill.

– $20,000 for a fish sperm freezer at the Gavins Point National Fish Hatchery in SD .

– $380,000 to spay and neuter pets in Wichita, Kan.

– $300 apiece for thousands of signs at road construction sites across the country announcing that the projects are funded by stimulus money.

– $1.5 million for a fence to block would-be jumpers from leaping off the All-American Bridge in Akron, OH .

– $1 million to study the health effects of environmentally friendly public housing on 300 people in Chicago.

– $356,000 for IN University to study childhood comprehension of foreign accents compared with native speech.

– $983,952 for street beautification in Ann Arbor, Mich., including decorative lighting, trees, benches and bike paths.

– $148,438 for WA State University to analyze the use of pot in conjunction with medications like morphine.

– $462,000 to purchase twenty two concrete toilets for use in the Mark Twain National Forest in MO

– $3.1 million to transform a canal barge into a floating museum that will travel the Erie Canal in NY state.

– $1.3 million on government arts jobs in ME , including $30,000 for basket makers, $20,000 for storytelling and $12,500 for a music festival.

– $71,000 for a hybrid car to be used by student drivers in Colchester, Vt., as well as a plug-in hybrid for town workers decked out with a sign touting the vehicle’s energy efficiency.

– $1 million for Portland, Ore., to replace one hundred aging bike lockers and build a garage that would house 250 bicycles.

Real nice, eh?

7 Comments on “Have you seen the stimulus bill hard at work?

  1. I’m not surprised with anything thing this incompetent administration does.

  2. Oh yeah, what an effective use of our hard earned money we are forking over in extra taxes.

    How’s that Hope & Change working out for ya?

  3. Yes! We’re using it as toilet paper –a sheet at a time–Now with the Pelosi Health Plan we’re in no need of more toilet paper for the rest of the year!

  4. Whole lotta road works earlier this year.

    The business I work at got a nice stimulus check too.

  5. Dang, I bet all of them was his buddies, and they put huge chunks of that in their own pockets, for supporting that liar to get into office.

  6. Out of curiosity, I used 1 of you claims, and I investigated it.

    You can go to recovery.gov and see what is being spent where and on what. You do not need to repeat or listen to lies.

    You claimed this:

    $9.38 million to renovate a century-old train depot in Lancaster County, Pa., that has not been used for 3 decades.

    I found this,and my guess is the rest of your chain email is similar:

    Media deceptively claim stimulus funds going to train station that hasn’t been used in thirty years
    June 17, 2009 2:26 pm ET

    SUMMARY: Media figures repeated Sen. Tom Coburn’s claim that stimulus funds are being used to renovate an abandoned train station that hasn’t been used in thirty years. But while the station house has long been closed, [t]he station’s platform currently serves more than 80,000 passengers a year, as Coburn’s report noted.