Your hard earned tax dollars at work

[P@triot]

The waste, fraud, and abuse at the federal level has reached nauseating levels. This has to stop.

Government Agency Spent Millions on PR Campaign

 

[P@triot]

This was directly from Senator Tom Coburn's (OK) website. Every year he tracked and published reports on government spending. He made a special one just for the Obama "stimulus package" and this is but a few of the disgusting examples:

1. Forest Service to Replace Windows in Visitor Center Closed in 2007 (Amboy, WA) - $554,763
Despite having no plans to reopen a shuttered visitor center at Mount St. Helens in Washington State, the U.S. Forest Service is spending more than $554,000 to replace its windows.

2. “Dance Draw” - Interactive Dance Software Development (Charlotte, NC) - $762,372
The University of North Carolina at Charlotte received more than $760,000 in stimulus funds to help develop a computerized choreography program that its creators believe could lead to a YouTube-like “Dance Tube” online application.

3. North Shore Connector to Professional Sports Stadiums, Casino (Pittsburgh, PA) - $62 million
ederal money has covered the vast majority of costs, with the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) agreeing to provide $348 million—nearly the full original cost—leaving state and local governments responsible for a small fraction.30 Even with that level of assistance, the Port Authority still threatened to shut down the project due to the enormous cost overruns. With an infusion of more than $62 million in stimulus money, the project was taken off life support.

4. FEMA Stalls Two Fire Stations More Than a Year, Increases Costs (San Antonio, TX) - $7.3 million
The City of San Antonio is hoping that there aren’t any fires for at least a year in the vicinity of two planned fire stations, thanks to “help” from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

5. Abandoned Train Station Converted Into Museum (Glassboro, NJ) - $1.2 million
Taxpayers may not be happy to learn that they are paying for one broken down train station twice. The Glassboro train station was built in 1860 and closed in 1971. Unused for nearly 40 years, it now sits boarded up and riddled with graffiti.

6. Ants Talk. Taxpayers Listen (San Francisco, CA) - $1.9 million
The California Academy of Sciences is receiving nearly $2 million to send researchers to the Southwest Indian Ocean Islands and east Africa, to capture, photograph, and analyze thousands of exotic ants.

7. Stimulus Project Threatens Pastor’s House (Newark, OH) - $1.8 million
An Ohio road project received $1.8 million in stimulus funds,56 despite the threat it poses to the residents of over two dozen homes next to it. Pastor Greg Sheets of Newark, Ohio’s Truth Tabernacle 57 has already lost his front yard to the project, and could lose his entire home.

8. Old Abandoned Iron Furnace Gets Facelift after Money Squandered on Same Project Years Before (Fitchburg, KY) – $357,710
Once considered ahead of its time, the Fitchburg Furnace in Kentucky was abandoned after just five years in service—it then sat unused for nearly 140 more. Now it is getting a $357,710 makeover to repair stonework on the old structure and allow historians to conduct research.

9. Power Plant Construction Won’t Start for at Least Two Years (Kern County, CA) - $308 million
BP may have found itself staring down huge financial losses over the past several months, but executives can take solace knowing that a stimulus windfall will help offset them. On September 28, 2009, Hydrogen Energy California, LLC (HECA), owned largely by BP, was awarded $308 million86 in stimulus funds to “generate more environmentally friendly electricity by capturing carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels.”

10. Town Replaces New Sidewalks With Newer Sidewalks That Lead to Ditch (Boynton, OK) - $89,298
People around Boynton, Oklahoma were left scratching their heads after the town was awarded nearly $90,00096 to replace a quarter-mile stretch of sidewalk that was replaced only five years ago. Another resident, Mike Lance, noted that “the best indication of the absurdity of the project is what the contractor did with a section of sidewalk at the north end of town – one that fronts no homes or businesses, and leads directly into a ditch.”