Senator Tom Coburn published a list of stimulus waste.
Thank you Senator Coburn.

Someone can make an argument for all the projects in the stimulus bill and did on the floor of both houses of Congress, but Senator Coburn hit the nail on the head when he said ""When we run $1.4 trillion deficits, the money we spend ought to be a high priority for the American people as a whole."

So with the backdrop being a $1.4 trillion dollar deficit as the filter for judging the permanent economic growth fostered by the stimulus package let's get into it.

$1.15 million for installation of a new guardrail for the non-existent Optima Lake in Oklahoma. There is no lake - it’s a dry hole.

Do you have any idea how many jobs business owners could create with $1.15 million?
Just think about what would have happened if Obama and the Big Government Statist in the Congress in 2009 had simply left that money alone to work in the private sector without being filtered through a gross, inefficient government.

In 2009, Senator Coburn stated that $1 billion for FutureGen in Mattoon, Illinois is the “biggest earmark of all time” for a power plant that may never work.

A year later in 2010, as Senator Coburn predicted the project did not work. The cost by that time was $1.2 Billion.
Senator Durbin, a longtime big government Democrat supported ending the project in Mattoon.

Do you have any idea how many permanent self-sustaining jobs business owners could have created with the money taken out of the private sector, filtered through the waste and inefficiency of government and then wasted on this boondoggle that created nothing permanent at all.

Illinois Town Backs Out Of FutureGen: Mattoon Says Changes In 'Clean' Coal Plant A Deal Breaker

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — An eastern Illinois town backed out of what was once a flagship energy project Wednesday after more than two years of political and financial ups and downs that saw the plans killed, revived and then radically altered.

Officials in Mattoon told U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin in a letter that changes made to the $1.2 billion FutureGen project were a deal breaker. Durbin and the Department of Energy surprised the town last week with changes that included retrofitting an existing power plant in western Illinois, instead of building a new experimental plant in Mattoon, and piping the plant's carbon dioxide to Mattoon for underground storage.

Would you care to reply to the poor need jobs not handouts thread? I posted in it you might be interested

Funny I never see anarchists like TC whining about the two unfunded wars and the waste in defense spending. Maybe because he's a shameless hypocrite.

He's not brave enough to be an anarchist... He's a limited state idiot... I'm an anarchist... That is ideally( unrealistically) I believe people should strive to create world were they can get along without government... But for now socialism will do a good job...

According to the Los Angeles Times:

"A report due to be released today by a Republican senator contends the Obama administration's stimulus program is fraught with waste and incompetence -- evidenced by a turtle crossing in northern Florida that will cost more than $3 million...."
"One project mentioned is the $3.4-million construction of a 13-foot tunnel near Tallahassee, Fla., that will allow turtles and other wildlife to safely cross U.S. Highway 27.

...The report said the area "has the highest road-kill mortality rate for turtles in the world." But it also suggests other uses for the money, and mentions Florida State University's plans to lay off 200 faculty and staff members in hopes of saving millions of dollars.

A 13 foot crossing that costs $3.4 million. That is over $261,000 per foot of tunnel.

How many permanent self-sustaining jobs that would lead to more economic growth and more jobs?

Nope. Paying someone to dig a hole turtles can go through is not sustainable economic growth.

Healthcare, need I say more?

All your threads are fun for you, tenderloin chops. After all, trolling is quite fun.

Wait, did I say tenderloin chops? I meant tettleton's chew.

Fasces I would add that Obamacare will allow the government to make overspending for rationed, substandard care an American tradition for future generations just like it has for the elderly already.

Abortion and stem cell research. Why the hell should I pay for that?

10,000 dead people getting Social Security stimulus checks.

Millions of Americans on Social Security are receiving $250 checks as part of the president's stimulus plan -- including an Anne Arundel woman who died more than 40 years ago.
The woman's son, 83-year-old James Hagner, said he got the surprise when he checked his mailbox late last week.
"It shocked me and I laughed all at the same time," Hagner said. "I don't even expect to get one my own self, and I get one for my mother for 43 years ago?"
His mother, Rose, died on Memorial Day in 1967.
Social Security representatives said there is a good explanation. Of the about 52 million checks that have been mailed out, about 10,000 of those have been sent to people who are deceased.

http://www.wbaltv.com/r/19435100/detail.html

Tettleton's Chew... you strike me as the perfect republican. talking to yourself in a bubble of your own creation and calling it enlightened conversation.

but please take your crap and either shove it into just ONE thread so the rest of us dont have to waste our time with it, or go talk to the many echo chambers that will readily eat your crap analysis from crap analysts.

at the very least, respect the community you have joined... STOP CREATING SO MANY IDIOTIC THREADS!!!

+20231 pts to Babak

Babak, if you don't like what I post mute me. I could really care less what you think.

Banks. Lehman they should have let fail. A.I.G. - we (all of US) still own 72% of this gargantua that paid bonuses to execs w/ the bailout

Taylor4, excellent point.
Capitalism let's poorly run institutions fail.
The FDIC should have covered the deposits and the rest of the investors eat it.
Now we will have zombie banks for the foreseeable future.
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac just asked for more billions as well last week.
Let them fail.

@ Babak

To be fair, this is Tettleton's only thread on the first page as of now.

@ Tettleton

This thread is kind of pointless. We all know the stimulus was a massive waste of money, even if the money went to useful projects. The first thing that anyone should do when they run out of money is stop spending money. The government clearly does not understand this.

@ Putin33

We should have stayed out of Iraq. Fine. You win on that one. War is always unfunded, especially a sneak attack like 9/11. We have to win in Afghanistan, and cutting defense spending is not a good way to win a war.

@Gunfighter (and ONLY Gunfighter):

The sentiment "We're out of money, we must stop spending money" is a popular and common one, and it makes sense for the every-day person in every-day situations, so it seems to apply to the government as well.

However, this is not the case.

Let us suppose you own a massive mansion that houses an enormous family and all the chazerai that they possess.

This worked well for about 50 or 60 years, but now you find yourself rather short on cash.

You CANNOT simply say, "Alright, no more spending on ANYTHING until the stash is replenished!"

You have a house to keep up.
You have to buy food.
And electricity.
And pay for water.
And toiletries.
And for natural gas.

And so on.

And you have to do this for your whole, massive family...we can argue that they, too, might chip in, but for the sake of argument, let's say they cannot move--since for the sake of our analogy no one is suggesting emmigration as an answer--and so you need to buy all these necessities...on a large scale...

You CANNOT simply stop and wait to build your stash back up.

You can stop spending on luxuries, yes...but what's a luxury?

The arts? Yes.
The TV? Yes.
The car?

At first you might say yes...and then you realize you also need to get to work, and the shuttle doesn't get you there on time, and no one wants to drive you...



A rough analogy, I know, but I think it makes the point--the US can't simply "stop spending money," as much as hokey politicians push their over-simplified answers on a public they assume will simple and unquestioning enough to buy a simple answer unquestioningly.

The US MUST cut back, yes...but it CANNOT stop spending money.

(And that "Mansion" analogy doesn't even assume that said family must pay for guns and bombs to protect them from other "neighbors" with guns and bombs, or that they must spend to keep up in research, as if they don't, they will ahve longer-term problems as well...so the solution is not so simple as to stop, sir.) :)

@Gunfighter Russia and the US could reduce nuclear weapon stock piles AND win the war in Afghanistan. It would allow Russia to claim victory for their 1980s attempt and it would allow us to get the foxtrot out. World peace, no Taliban and a new glass supply. Win/win/win.

+1 The Czech

Gunfighter, you completely contradict yourself in the same part of your post to me.
"We all know the stimulus was a massive waste of money..."
"The government clearly does not understand this."

You are wrong to post that we all know the stimulus was a massive waste of money.
Big Government Statists like Obama, Schumer, Pelosi, Reid, Krugman etc. do not know this and in fact believe with biblical certainty that the only reason the stimulus failed is because it wasn't big enough.

I also get a kick out of the grandiose proclamation "This kind of thread is useless."

Seeing individuals post what they believe in is useless?
It seems like someone uncertainty is showing.
This thread is certainly uncomfortable, but idiots who say that wealth redistribution builds a vibrant sustainable society and that stimulus works are always uncomfortable when asked to show tangible historical examples where it did work.