Stimulus

Washington (CNSNews.com) – The federal government is spending $62 million on a tunnel to nowhere in Pittsburgh, Pa., $89,000 on a sidewalk that leads to a ditch in Boynton, Okla., and almost $200,000 to study voter perception of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, better known as the stimulus act, from which these other projects are funded.

That’s according to a report released on Tuesday by the offices of Republican Sens. John McCain of Arizona and Tom Coburn of Oklahoma. Both Coburn and McCain, the Republican presidential nominee in 2008, opposed the stimulus bill backed by President Barack Obama.

The $862-billion stimulus bill was signed into law by Obama in February 2009...

(CNSNews.com) – A majority of Americans believe President Barack Obama’s has harmed economic growth, according to a Rasmussen Reports poll Friday.

Less than a third, 29 percent, believe that the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, better known as the stimulus package, improved the economy. Meanwhile, 43 percent believe it hurt the economy.

The survey was released the same day that the Labor Department released its monthly figures showing that while the number of job cuts were 125,000, the unemployment rate went down from 9.7 percent to 9.5 percent, or two-tenths of a percentage point. President Obama signed the $787 billion stimulus package in February 2009, vowing the bill would save or create 3.5 million to 4 million jobs...

While in high school, I was standing at a bus stop next to a gas station. A kid tossed a candy wrapper on the station lot. Somebody yelled, "Hey, pick that up." The kid, with a straight face, defended himself. He said, "I just created a job." Someone would be hired, he explained, to pick up the trash, and this would be good for the economy.

Don't laugh. The kid probably works for the Obama administration.

Congress is now considering yet another "stimulus" package. But did the administration's previous one work? Of the $787 billion stimulus package, President Obama said it would "save or create" 3.5 million new jobs. Has it?....

A veteran Republican senator believes President Obama's "stimulus" package is continuing to destroy economic growth and private sector employment.

The Labor Department reported yesterday that the number of people who joined the unemployment lines went up again last week as the number of those applying for unemployment benefits rose by 18,000 to a seasonally adjusted 460,000.

Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) says the Obama administration's job-creation efforts are not working...

The small town of Stanley, Va., figured on spending its nearly $40,000 share of federal stimulus funds to start replacing its aging fleet of four police cars.

But Stanley learned last summer that the federal government wouldn't release the town's stimulus money. The U.S. Department of Agriculture was worried that the town's plans to buy Dodge, Ford or Chevrolet police cars assembled in Canada could violate the "Buy American" provisions of the American Recovery and Investment Act, records show.

"The situation has put our town of Stanley in an extreme hardship trying to provide public safety to our community," Police Chief Tim Foster later wrote in letters to Congress....

WASHINGTON — More than $3.5 billion in economic stimulus funds are going to programs that President Obama wants to eliminate or trim in his new budget.

The president's budget released this month recommends getting rid of Army Corps of Engineers' drinking-water projects, which got $200 million in stimulus funds, and a U.S. Department of Agriculture flood-prevention program, which received $290 million from the stimulus, a USA TODAY review of stimulus spending reports show...

(CNSNews.com) – Republicans railed against the Obama administration last month when the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) predicted a $6 trillion dollar deficit over the next decade. But an analysis by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB), a taxpayer watchdog group, of President Obama’s proposed budget baseline for fiscal year 2011 points out it actually could spur more like $8.5 trillion in deficits.

Under the president’s budget proposal submitted to Congress, deficits would shrink slowly over much of the next decade, and then would start to grow again.

The deficit peaks at $1.56 trillion in FY 2010, constituting 10.6 percent of GDP); then is projected to drop to $1.27 trillion -- or 8.3 percent of GDP -- in FY 2011; $828 billion (5.1 percent of GDP) in FY 2012 and $727 billion (or 4.2 percent of GDP) in FY 2013. In FY 2016, the deficit begins to grow again in real terms, and as a share of GDP in FY 2019. By FY 2020, the deficit would top $1 trillion...

A congressional analyst says the findings of a new audit of the U.S. Census Bureau illustrate why the government cannot be trusted to stimulate the economy.

An audit performed by federal investigators finds that the U.S. Census Bureau wasted millions of dollars in preparation for the 2010 census. Thousands of temporary employees either picked up $300 checks without working one day or overbilled for travel costs. For example, 23 temporary census employees were paid for car mileage costs at 55 cents a mile, even though the number of miles they reported driving per hour exceeded the total number of hours they actually worked.

Brian Darling, director of Senate relations for The Heritage Foundation, says the waste, fraud, and abuse uncovered in the Census Bureau is another reminder that the federal government is not very good at running anything...

Billions of dollars in stimulus money is now going to programs that the administration plans to ax or cut down in its new budget, according to USA Today, which reported Wednesday that the total comes to more than $3.5 billion

Among the programs facing elimination or reduction are:

The Army Corps of Engineers' drinking-water project, which has received $200 million in the stimulus package.

The Department of Agriculture's flood-prevention program, the recipient of $290 million.

The Forest Service, which is getting $100 million less for maintenance and construction in national forests even though it received $650 million in stimulus money....

(CNSNews.com) – Though unemployment is at 9.7 percent, and just six percent of Americans think the government has created jobs, President Barack Obama will hold a White House reception on Wednesday to mark the one-year anniversary of signing the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, better known as the economic stimulus bill.

Meanwhile, administration officials, including Vice President Joe Biden and cabinet secretaries, will travel to 35 locations across the country this week to promote the $787 stimulus, which was designed to revive the economy – a reported $272 billion of the $787 billion has been spent since the bill became law in February 2009.

Administration officials have insisted that the legislation is on course to “save or create” 3 million jobs.  read more »