Good news! We found those “shovel-ready” jobs!

Let’s take that $20 million and divide it by 14 jobs, which gives us a figure of $1,428,571 cost per job created.

Pardon us, Mr. President. Here we’ve been wondering where all those “shovel-ready” jobs you keep talking about are and lo and behold we think we’ve found them!

golden-shovel
Who needs a golden parachute when you can have a golden shovel?

Seattle’s KOMO News has the story:

Last year, Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn announced the city had won a coveted $20 million federal grant to invest in weatherization. The unglamorous work of insulating crawl spaces and attics had emerged as a silver bullet in a bleak economy – able to create jobs and shrink carbon footprint – and the announcement came with great fanfare.

Wow! $20 million for jobs! Fantastic! Amazing! Pathetic! Wait. Did we say pathetic? Yes, that’s exactly what we said. While this was supposed to create 2,000 jobs the reality is:

But more than a year later, Seattle’s numbers are lackluster. As of last week, only three homes had been retrofitted and just 14 new jobs have emerged from the program. Many of the jobs are administrative, and not the entry-level pathways once dreamed of for low-income workers. Some people wonder if the original goals are now achievable.

Back to those simple mathematics that seem so elusive to the Obama administration. Let’s take that $20 million and divide it by 14 jobs, which gives us a figure of $1,428,571 cost per job created.

Yes, that certainly sounds like “hope and change” to us. No hope and with spending like that, the taxpayers will get no change at all. Not even a penny.

– Written by CO2Insanity

Source: KOMO News

Alan Greenspan speaks: Obama’s stimulus was a giant waste of money

Alan Greenspan says you’re wrong if you think President Obama’s massive $timulu$ had absolutely no impact on the economy.

Alan Greenspan says you’re wrong if you think President Obama’s massive $timulu$ had absolutely no impact on the economy. To the contrary, the former head of the Fed says it weakened the dollar and made everything from food to commodities cost more.

Far be it from us to speak for Greenspan, though, so let’s let CNBC deliver the details:

In a blunt critique of his successor, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, Greenspan said the $2 trillion in quantative easing over the past two years had done little to loosen credit and boost the economy.

“There is no evidence that huge inflow of money into the system basically worked,” Greenspan said in a live interview.

“It obviously had some effect on the exchange rate and the exchange rate was a critical issue in export expansion,” he said. “Aside from that, I am ill-aware of anything that really worked. Not only QE2 but QE1.”

That’s quite a little legacy Ben Bernanke and Barack Obama are leaving: Massive debt, a weaker dollar and a crippled economy.

And to paraphrase President Obama, “It worked so well the first time, let’s do it again.”

Watch the entire video, he has a lot more to say on what we’ve done and where we’re going, and it ain’t pretty.

Source: CNBC

Letter to the Editor: The Stimulus worked!

R. Coddington Fahrnsworth penned a letter to the Editor of I Hate The Media. He’s not happy with us bashing the president.

Dear I Hate The Media and The Feeling Is MUTUAL,

I’m so sick of you Republicans! I am tired of you and your erroneous belief that the government stimulus program – engineered by the greatest President in the history of mankind and the most kind, benevolent human being since Gandhi, Barack Obama – failed.

main-street
Fahrnsworth is correct: There are no monuments on Main Street

Well, I hope you have a big plate of crow in front of your fat cat, Klan-enhooded faces because the latest housing figures are in and–guess what?–home prices are soaring!

Yay!

Home prices, according to the most trustworthy source of news in modern history, the Washington Post, are up in the Washington D.C. metropolitan area.

Of course, they’re down in every other major city, but who cares about those places? They don’t matter. They don’t have monuments.

These cities – if you want to call them that – are in the second dip of a double dip housing recession. But, again, who cares about those citizens. These people aren’t entrusted with the preservation of the Union and over-paid government positions.

So next time you’re bashing the President, I hope you remember he single-handedly (Oh! Those precious hands! So soft it’s like they never did a day of work!) restored the economic luster of our great capital and promoted the prosperity of the people who make this country work – the bureaucrats and various czars and czarinas of the United States of America.

Oh, and suck it, GOP!

Sincerely,

R. Coddington Fahrnsworth

Undersecretary to the Oversecretary’s Secretary, Department of the Budget, Budgeting Department, Division of the Department of Administration, Housing Administration

Source: Washington Post

Alan Greenspan: Stop the stimulus, start the recovery

Massive government intervention to save the economy is to blame for the lagging recovery, Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said Tuesday.

Did you know that Alan Greenspan was, for many years, one of Ayn Rand’s closest associates? With that in mind, it should come as no surprise that the former Head of the Fed is no fan of The Stimulus.

alan-greenspan
"Stop the stimulus, start the economy," says Alan Greenspan

CNN Money reports Greenspan’s Randian response:

Massive government intervention to save the economy is to blame for the lagging recovery, Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said Tuesday.

Greenspan argued for less government intervention to get the recovery rolling and businesses investing in equipment and plants.

“What we need to do now is to calm down; let things move by themselves,” he said at a forum at the Council of Foreign Relations. “And indeed the rate of activism has decreased significantly and the ratio of capital flow has inched back up.”

“Less activism, more activity.”

Words to live by.

Source: CNN Money

President Obama says stimulus helped states manage their budgets. Is that what it was supposed to do?

We’re morons because we thought the purpose of the American Recovery & Reinvestment Act was to stimulate the economy, to finance all those shovel ready projects and to keep unemployment from going over 8%.

We’re morons, which, of course, comes as no surprise to anyone who reads IHTM on a regular basis.

But in this particular case, we’re morons because we thought the purpose of the American Recovery & Reinvestment Act was to stimulate the economy, to finance all those shovel ready projects and to keep unemployment from going over 8%.

Looks like we were, oh, so wrong. Here’s what President Obama told the nation’s governors on Monday:

“As the Recovery Act funds that saw through many states over the last two years are phasing out and it is undeniable that the Recovery Act helped every single state represented in this room manage your budgets, whether you admit it or not. You face some very tough choices at this point on everything from schools to prisons to pensions.”

In other words, the Recovery Act supplied crack to the addicts, but now the pusher man has run out of crack.

At least that’s the way we interpret what he said.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-UeCkwZ8BU

Stimulus money over easy: $141,002 to send Montana students to study Chinese dinosaur eggs

The National Science Foundation gave a $141,002 federal stimulus grant to Montana State University to fund a six-week, student trip to Hangzhou, China, to study dinosaur eggs and other fossils.

The Washington Examiner called this the Outrage of the Day. We can’t disagree.

dinosaur-eggs
"These are dinosaur eggs, class. They look like rocks. Now let's go explore Chinese culture."

WHO: The National Science Foundation
WHAT: Gave a $141,002 federal stimulus grant to Montana State University to fund a six-week, student trip to Hangzhou, China, to study dinosaur eggs and other fossils.
WHY IT’S AN OUTRAGE: The students found ample time to experience Chinese culture and explore on taxpayers’ money, but the dinosaur eggs did not hatch any new jobs

We would assume that the phrase “experience Chinese culture” includes a little Schezwan Pork, pot stickers and combo fried rice washed down with a couple bottles of Tsingtao beer. Maybe more than a couple. After all, a day studying Chinese dinosaur eggs is exhausting.

Source: Washington Examiner

“Hello, Ritz-Carlton? We’re investigating government waste. And we’d like to do it at your posh hotel in Phoenix.”

“Do you still have those little foo-foo drinks with the umbrellas? Do the waitresses still deliver them poolside? Will you accept a government credit card? Perfect. Let’s go ahead and make the reservations.”

“Do you still have those little foo-foo drinks with the umbrellas? Do the waitresses still deliver them poolside? Will you accept a government credit card? Perfect. Let’s go ahead and make the reservations.”

The Washington Examiner has the disgusting story of waste piled on top of waste:

ritz carlton stimulus waste
Piña coladas for everyone! When the rigorous round of public and private meetings are over, government investigators will discuss their findings poolside.

Members of a key panel created by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, better known as the stimulus bill, have scheduled a meeting on November 22 to consider ways to prevent “fraud, waste, and abuse of Recovery Act funds.” The meeting will be held at the super-luxe Ritz Carlton Hotel in Phoenix, Arizona.

The group is the Recovery Independent Advisory Panel, a sub-committee of the larger Recovery Accountability and Transparency board (sometimes known as the RAT board). The stimulus bill set up the Recovery Independent Advisory Panel, or RIAP, to make recommendations to identify and prevent waste of the bill’s $814 billion in stimulus spending.

“The purpose of the November 22, 2010 meeting is to allow the RIAP to have an open dialogue, with input from the public, on issues relating to fraud, waste, and abuse of Recovery Act funds,” says a notice in the Federal Register. Specifically, participants in the meeting will discuss various techniques to detect and prevent fraud, waste, and abuse, as well as larger issues of transparency and public awareness. Portions of the meeting will be open to the public, while other parts will be closed.

It doesn’t get much ritzier than the Ritz-Carlton. The Editor was once booted from the Ritz-Carlton in Laguna Niguel, California for attempting to wear jeans…gasp…at dinner.

Not to worry. If that were to happen in this case, we’re confident members of the stimulus waste panel would immediately rush out and purchase new pants on your dime.

Source: Washington Examiner

Obama admits there were no “shovel ready jobs,” Krauthammer pounces

After all his talk about “shovel ready jobs,” President Obama admitted yesterday that there really never were any shovel ready projects nor any shovel ready jobs. Charles Krauthammer lays it all out.

After all his talk about “shovel ready jobs,” President Obama admitted yesterday that there really never were any shovel ready projects nor any shovel ready jobs.

Does that surprise you? It shouldn’t. We’re willing to bet this guy’s never owned a shovel. He’s never had a real job. And he certainly wasn’t ready for the job he has now.

Charles Krauthammer lays it all out:

“Well, that is quite an admission. You know, a year and a half and half a trillion dollars later he says these things that I talked about endlessly don’t exist. It’s not actually surprising that he doesn’t know what a shovel ready project is. Having never worked in the private sector he wouldn’t be sure what a project is and there isn’t a lot of shoveling at Harvard Law School.” So I can understand that this was one of the greatest “Oops” in American history. And it’s going to be hard for a democrat when you show one tape against another. They’re goint to say, “So you supported a trillion dollars offered by a president who didn’t even know that this stuff that this stuff is not going to happen?”

NOTE: Although Barack Obama has never owned a shovel, he’s still managed to dig himself a pretty big hole in the last 21 months.

Your tax dollars at work: Teaching African men to wash their stuff after sex

And when we say “stuff,” we’re not talking about their shoes and sox and Kobe Bryant jerseys. We’re talking about their junk. Their packages. Oh, what the hell, let’s not beat around the bush any more. We’re talking about their genitals.

And when we say “stuff,” we’re not talking about their shoes and sox and Kobe Bryant jerseys. We’re talking about their junk. Their packages. Oh, what the hell, let’s not beat around the bush any more. We’re talking about their genitals.

CNSnews has the details from the baloney pony express:

african-man-washing
Rub-a-dub-dub, bud

The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), a division of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), spent $823,200 of economic stimulus funds in 2009 on a study by a UCLA research team to teach uncircumcised African men how to wash their genitals after having sex.

The genitalia-washing program is part of a larger $12-million UCLA study examining how to better encourage Africans to undergo voluntary HIV testing and counseling – however, only the penis-washing study received money from the 2009 economic stimulus law. The washing portion of the study is set to end in 2011.

“NIH Announces the Availability of Recovery Act Funds for Competitive Revision Applications,” the grant abstract states. “We propose to evaluate the feasibility of a post-coital genital hygiene study among men unwilling to be circumcised in Orange Farm, South Africa.”

Before you rush to judgment, please remember that this program created or saved 1,000,000 jobs. Maybe more.

Source: CNSnews.com

Barack Obama and Tim Geithner walk into a bar…

You’re going to wish this was a joke, but it’s not. $700,000 in $timulus money went to a Northwestern University researcher to write software that tells jokes.

You’re going to wish this was a joke, but it’s not. $700,000 in stimulus money went to a Northwestern University researcher to write software that tells jokes.

ABC 7 Chicago has the unfunny facts:

Professor Kristian Hammond says it’s serious work. But some critics say using stimulus money for this type of research is no laughing matter.

Critics say the project is simply a waste of taxpayer money. But the man behind this next-generation software say those detractors, which include Senator John McCain, have never bothered to call and ask him what his work is all about.

In a building at Northwestern in Evanston, computer sciences professor Kristian Hammond is trying to make computers funny.

“Understanding what makes humor, what makes irony, what makes interesting juxtapositions, to understand what that means we can actually create it. We can create new material,” said Hammond.

It’s all heady, academic stuff, but Hammond is trying to give computers intuition.

The next-generation software looks at news stories and social media, and brings words together to form original lines of thought — a joke, if you will.
The material generated so far is not exactly killer standup material, and Hammond’s critics certainly aren’t laughing.

The project has received more than $700,000 in federal stimulus money. Recently, Senator McCain singled out Hammond’s project, calling it a “joke machine,” one of many examples, he said, of wasteful spending.

“None of them really have any meaningful impact on creating jobs,” McCain said.

Late night comedians like David Letterman will undoubtedly line up to buy Hammond’s software. Why hire a highly-paid staff of comedy writers when a computer can crank out your nightly monologue. And it doesn’t really matter that the software doesn’t produce “killer material” because Letterman stopped being funny about 20 years ago.

Source: ABC 7 Chicago

Rick Sanchez stupidity alert! Rick Sanchez stupidity alert!

CNN’s human gaffe machine insisted – vehemently insisted – that the White House had never said unemployment would remain under 8% if the $timulus bill were passed.

Once a week or so, we are forced to issue a Rick Sanchez stupidity alert. Today is the day.

CNN’s human gaffe machine insisted – vehemently insisted – that the White House had never said unemployment would remain under 8% if the $timulus bill were passed.

Of course, he was proven wrong within moments and had to make the following mea culpa.

May we suggest that Rick make apologies a regular part of his proram. You know, kind of like Ed Schultz does Crazy Talk, Rick could do Apology Talk, a segment at the end of each show where he apologizes for all the stupid things he said that day.

Ahhh, why aren’t we programming CNN? We couldn’t do worse than the current people.

Wrong and wronger: Obama brags about Ohio police station built with stimulus money

It really is amateur hour at the White House these days. President Obama made a campaign appearance Presidential address in Ohio and made one mistake after another.

It really is amateur hour at the White House these days. President Obama made a campaign appearance Presidential address in Ohio and made one mistake after another.

The Columbus Dispatch has the correct info on the President’s incorrect info:

barack-obama-wrong-twice
Obama doubles down: It wasn't a police station and it wasn't built with stimulus money. But other than that...

A local project that President Barack Obama cited during a visit Wednesday to Columbus as an example of how the federal stimulus package has worked isn’t actually being funded with stimulus dollars.

The president spoke at the North Side home of architect Joe Weithman, and both Obama’s comments and information from the White House touted Weithman’s work on a project that the president said was being at least partially funded by the $787 billion stimulus bill passed last year.

“What we’ve been trying to do is to build infrastructure that puts people back to work but also improves the quality of life in communities like Columbus,” Obama said in his remarks. “So Joe is an architect, and he’s now working on a new police station that was funded in part with Recovery Act funds.”

But although federal money is being used for the project in question, there are no stimulus dollars involved, said Columbus Finance Director Paul Rakosky, a Democrat.

Rakosky said the project is not a police station but rather the renovation of an abandoned warehouse that the city purchased on the South Side in 2007 to house the city’s police crime lab and property room.

Oopsie! Double oopsie! (And that’s what passes as in-depth political commentary here at IHateTheMedia.com.)

Source: Columbus Dispatch

Signs of the apocalypse: $20,000,000 spent on road signs glorifying Democrats and Obama

Barack Obama and the Democrat party are using millions of your tax dollars to put up road signs praising themselves just before the midterm elections. Oh, sure, the signs are disguised as government neutral, but make no mistake, they are campaign posters.

stimulus road signs

Barack Obama and the Democrat party are using millions of your tax dollars to put up road signs praising themselves just before the midterm elections. Oh, sure, the signs are disguised as government neutral, but make no mistake, they are campaign posters.

It’s egregious enough that even ABC News felt compelled to report the story:

As the midterm election season approaches, new road signs are popping up everywhere – millions of dollars worth of signs touting “The American Reinvestment and Recovery Act” and reminding passers-by that the program is “Putting America Back to Work.”

On the road leading to Dulles Airport outside Washington, DC there’s a 10′ x 11′ road sign touting a runway improvement project funded by the federal stimulus. The project cost nearly $15 million and has created 17 jobs, according to recovery.gov.

However, there’s another number that caught the eye of ABC News: $10,000. That’s how much money the Washington Airports Authority tells ABC News it spent to make and install the sign – a single sign – announcing that the project is “Funded by The American Reinvestment and Recovery Act” and is “Putting America Back to Work.” The money for the sign was taken out of the budget for the runway improvement project.

The story continues:

Continue reading “Signs of the apocalypse: $20,000,000 spent on road signs glorifying Democrats and Obama”

Barack Obama Parkway. Proof that the road to hell is paved with stimulus dollars.

Barack Obama Parkway. That’s what the city fathers of Orlando, Florida have decided to name the city’s newest road.

barack obama parkway
We assume that Orlando's Barack Obama Parkway leads directly to FantasyLand

Barack Obama Parkway. That’s what the city fathers of Orlando, Florida have decided to name the city’s newest road.

We assume it’s a toll road on which you drive for free, but your children and grandchildren will have to pay dearly. We also assume you can only get on the road by making a sharp left turn.

Central Florida News has the story:

On Friday, Orlando leaders made President Barack Obama Parkway the first road under construction in the nation named after our 44th president, and surely one of the few in history to be named after a sitting president in his first term.

“I think it’s great if people want to support their presidential candidate, but I think it’s a little soon,” said Orlando resident Karey Graham.

“You don’t have to be dead to be honored,” said Charles Sledge from Orlando. “We need to honor people while they are living.”

While some might find the name controversial, Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer said the benefits of the road are undeniable.

“Building these reliever roads is important for people being able to get to work or home and being able to save 10 minutes they can spend with their families. In this particular area John Young (Parkway), Kirkman (Road), I-4 always have congestion,” Dyer said.

Construction of the road will undoubtedly delayed when liberals accuse the city fathers of racism for painting white lines on the road.

Source: Central Florida News

This will rub a lot of people the wrong way: Millions of stimulus dollars going to massage schools

Maybe it’s a good idea to give all our tax dollars to massage schools. Because at the rate we’re going, we’re all going to need a nice, relaxing massage.

Maybe it’s a good idea to give all our tax dollars to massage schools. Because at the rate we’re going, we’re all going to need a nice, relaxing massage.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has the deep tissue details:

Massage and beauty schools, online universities and other for-profit colleges in Georgia and across the nation are cashing in on federal stimulus spending, collecting $2.2 billion in tuition grants for low-income students, public records show.

That represents nearly a quarter of the stimulus money spent on these grants to date.

In Georgia alone, millions of dollars are going to massage schools and beauty schools. Lord only knows how much is being spread around the rest of the country.

Because of how the government is tracking the stimulus spending, it’s impossible to break it down precisely by state. But the records show profit-making schools that have campuses or corporate headquarters in Georgia have received more than $550 million of these stimulus funds.

Among them are University of Phoenix, American InterContinental University, Royal Beauty Careers and Atlanta School of Massage. Beauty and massage schools with ties to Georgia have received $3.3 million through the stimulus program alone.

There may be stimulus involved, but this will not be a happy ending massage.

Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Barack Obama said we have 57 states. Joe Biden apparently thinks one of them is the state of denial.

success of the Stimulus Bill while speaking in a state with an unemployment rate of 14%? Did no one tell Biden that Michigan lost more than 160,000 jobs last year?

How do you explain Joe Biden congratulating himself for the success of the Stimulus Bill while speaking in a state with an unemployment rate of 14%? Did no one tell Biden that Michigan lost more than 160,000 jobs last year?

Despite reality staring him squarely in the eyes, Biden patted himself on the back and told the people of Michigan, “It’s working.”

Then he ran to his foreign-made limousine, jumped in and said, “These stupid buckeyes don’t know how good they’ve got it.”

Yeah, we made up that last paragraph. But you have to admit that it sounds like something Biden would say.

Joe Biden is creating jobs like nobody’s business

Why to hear Joe Biden tell it, he’s a regular job creating dynamo. Here’s how Bloomberg reports the story of this walking, talking economic miracle

Joe Biden has also saved or created 700,000 follicles
Joe Biden has also saved or created 700,000 follicles

Why, to hear Joe Biden tell it, he’s a regular job creating dynamo.

Here’s how Bloomberg reports the story of this walking, talking economic miracle:

President Barack Obama’s clean- energy initiatives will help create more than 700,000 jobs and allow the U.S. to double its renewable-power generation in three years, according to a report by Vice President Joe Biden.

Biden, in a memo on administration efforts to shift to a clean-energy economy, said projects in the $787 billion economic stimulus package are contributing to “unprecedented growth” in renewable energy, such as wind and solar, and improving manufacturing for new clean-energy technology.

Hold your horses there, buckeroo. The Wall Street Journal noticed something a little odd about those jobs:

Take a look at footnote 3 on page 2 of the Biden memo:

All of the job estimates used in this document correspond to jobs that last for one year. Of course, some jobs could last longer–in this case the number of distinct jobs would be reduced proportionately. For example, a project that employs one person for two years would count as creating two jobs.

We suppose if the guy doesn’t get fired from either of his two jobs over the course of the two years, that would count as four jobs saved or created.

Of course. It’s like Biden’s hair plugs. He takes them from one part of his head and moves them to another part of his head and says he’s created or saved 700,000 follicles.

Source: Bloomberg

In addition to saving or creating jobs, Obama’s now saving and creating entire congressional districts

Barack Obama not only creates jobs where none exist, he creates entire congressional districts where none exist.

Obama's Imaginary Congressional District Czar researching the number of jobs that have been saved or created
Obama's Imaginary Congressional District Czar researching the number of jobs that have been saved or created

No wonder his admirers think Barack Obama is The Greatest President In History. The guy not only creates jobs where none exist, he creates entire congressional districts where none exist.

“The Obama administration,” ABC News reports, “under fire for inflating job growth from the $787 billion stimulus plan, slashed over 60,000 jobs from its most recent report on the program because the reporting outlets had submitted ‘unrealistic data,’ according to a document obtained by ABC News.”

For example, Alabama’s Talladega County claimed 5,000 jobs had been saved or created from only $42,000 in stimulus funds. Ohio’s Belmont Metropolitan Housing Authority reported 16,120 jobs saved or created thanks to $1.3 million in stimulus money. Alabama’s Shelton State Community College used $27,000 in stimulus funds to save or create 14,500 jobs. And Alaska’s Alkan Builders used $11 mil to save or create 3,000 saved or created jobs.

Unfortunately, the reporting was bogus and all those jobs have been quietly subtracted from the 1,000,000 jobs Obama now claims he’s saved or created.

But the Obama administration, never sticklers for the truth, also claimed that Arizona’s 15th congressional district was able to use $761,420 to save 30 jobs. In one Iowa district, $10.6 million spent to create 39 jobs. And another 25 jobs were created in Connecticut’s 42nd district.

Problem is, those congressional districts – and many others listed in the government’s report – do not exist. Well, to be 100% accurate, they do exist, but only in the minds of White House imagineers.

Now that Obama has created these districts, Nancy Pelosi will soon begin crowing that evil Republicans want to deny the districts’ voters their constitutionally-guaranteed rights. The ACLU will rush in to file a suit on their behalf. Dead people from Chicago will move en masse to those districts so they can vote. And the Democrats will gain another ten seats in congress.

The sad part is that you’re wondering right now if that last paragraph is a joke.

Source: ABC News

Next time your boss gives you a raise, send President Obama a thank you note

Thanks to a unique, new economic theory promulgated by the Obama administration, salary increases count as some of those “jobs saved” for which President Obama so proudly pats himself on the back.

Save a job. Give someone a raise.
Save a job. Give someone a raise.

Thanks to a unique, new economic theory promulgated by the Obama administration, salary increases count as some of those “jobs saved” for which President Obama so proudly pats himself on the back.

The Associated Press explains President Obama’s unique economic theory as best it can:

President Barack Obama’s economic recovery program saved 935 jobs at the Southwest Georgia Community Action Council, an impressive success story for the stimulus plan. Trouble is, only 508 people work there.

The Georgia nonprofit’s inflated job count is among persisting errors in the government’s latest effort to measure the effect of the $787 billion stimulus plan despite White House promises last week that the new data would undergo an “extensive review” to root out errors discovered in an earlier report.

About two-thirds of the 14,506 jobs claimed to be saved under one federal office, the Administration for Children and Families at Health and Human Services, actually weren’t saved at all, according to a review of the latest data by The Associated Press. Instead, that figure includes more than 9,300 existing employees in hundreds of local agencies who received pay raises and benefits and whose jobs weren’t saved.

The story continues:

But officials defended the practice of counting raises as saved jobs.

“If I give you a raise, it is going to save a portion of your job,” HHS spokesman Luis Rosero said.

And if Rosero parrots this crap convincingly enough, it could save his job.

Source: Associated Press

Stimulus stupidity: kiss your hard-earned tax dollars goodbye

CNBC looks at ten stupid projects funded by the Obama administration’s $787 billion stimulus bill. We can’t decide if this is hilarious or depressing. Possibly both.

CNBC looks at ten stupid projects funded by the Obama administration’s $787 billion stimulus bill.

We can’t decide if this is hilarious or depressing. Possibly both.

H/T: The Big Feed

CIT goes bankrupt. Poof! There go those TARP profits the Obama administration bragged about last month

Remember how the media happily bought the Obama administration’s TARP storyline back in August?

Tim Geithner should remember the words of noted American philosopher and baseball pitcher Satchel Paige, "Don't look back. Something might be gainin' on you."
Tim Geithner should remember the words of noted American philosopher and baseball pitcher Satchel Paige, "Don't look back. Something might be gainin' on you."

Remember how the media happily bought the Obama administration’s TARP storyline back in August?

For example, this report from the New York Times:

As Banks Repay Bailout Money, U.S. Sees a Profit

Nearly a year after the federal rescue of the nation’s biggest banks, taxpayers have begun seeing profits from the hundreds of billions of dollars in aid that many critics thought might never be seen again.
The profits, collected from eight of the biggest banks that have fully repaid their obligations to the government, come to about $4 billion, or the equivalent of about 15 percent annually, according to calculations compiled for The New York Times.

That’s great news! TARP was pure genius. Give Obama a Nobel Prize in Economics to go on the mantel next to the Peace Prize. Except for one thing.

As the Naked Capitalist said, “Credit 101 is that your best borrowers repay first (unless you gave them overly generous terms, of course, then they might hang on to the proceeds). A quick but not conclusive search suggests that only a small portion of the TARP has been retired, so it is wildly premature to declare victory.”

Wildly premature, indeed, considering the latest news from Bloomberg:

Continue reading “CIT goes bankrupt. Poof! There go those TARP profits the Obama administration bragged about last month”

Circle the wagons: Even CBS finds Obama’s stimulus claims “hard to believe”

Uh-oh. Even perky Katie Couric has noticed that all is not well in ObamaLand and that reality may just be considerably different than the rosy fiction being spun by the administration.

Uh-oh. Even perky Katie Couric has noticed that all is not well in ObamaLand and that reality may just be considerably different than the rosy fiction being spun by the administration.

Reporter Chip Reid filed this skeptical report on Couric’s CBS Evening News:

Continue reading “Circle the wagons: Even CBS finds Obama’s stimulus claims “hard to believe””

We hate to admit it, but Nancy Pelosi may have been right

We may owe Nancy Pelosi an apology. We laughed at her back in February when she said 500 million people might lose their jobs every month.

We may owe Nancy Pelosi an apology. We laughed at her back in February when she said 500 million people might lose their jobs every month.

But we’re now nine months into the Obama economy and it’s beginning to look like that number may be accurate.

Please accept our humblest apologies, Speaker Pelosi.

The good news: North Dakota adds 1,800 jobs. The bad news: the other 49 states lost jobs

According to the data, 49 States and the District of Columbia have lost jobs since stimulus was enacted. Only North Dakota has seen net job creation following the February 2009 stimulus.

At the risk of being called Republic tools (as opposed to the just plain “tools” we’re normally called), we quote directly from the Republican Ways and Means website:

The table below compares the White House’s February 2009 projection of the number of jobs that would be created by the 2009 stimulus law (through the end of 2010) with the actual change in state payroll employment through September 2009 (the latest figures available).

According to the data, 49 States and the District of Columbia have lost jobs since stimulus was enacted. Only North Dakota has seen net job creation following the February 2009 stimulus.

While President Obama claimed the result of his stimulus bill would be the creation of 3.5 million jobs, the Nation has already lost a total of 2.7 million – a difference of 6.2 million jobs. To see how stimulus has failed your state, see the table below.

1800 jobs in North Dakota. We have to admit we’re surpised. We didn’t know Indian casinos had that many blackjack dealers.

Here’s the chart, look up your state:
Continue reading “The good news: North Dakota adds 1,800 jobs. The bad news: the other 49 states lost jobs”

Great news for golfers: Obama’s economic stimulus program will pay you to buy a golf cart

Whoever designed this program must have had too many brewskis at the 19th hole. It’s like Cash-for-Clunkers on steroids.

Did anyone notice the moment when economic stimulus ended and economic madness began?
Did anyone notice the moment when economic stimulus ended and economic madness began?

Whoever designed this program must have had too many brewskis at the 19th hole. It’s like Cash-for-Clunkers on steroids.

Let’s just let the Wall Street Journal report this one while we take a few practice swings:

The federal (tax) credit provides from $4,200 to $5,500 for the purchase of an electric vehicle, and when it is combined with similar incentive plans in many states the tax credits can pay for nearly the entire cost of a golf cart. Even in states that don’t have their own tax rebate plans, the federal credit is generous enough to pay for half or even two-thirds of the average sticker price of a cart, which is typically in the range of $8,000 to $10,000. “The purchase of some models could be absolutely free,” Roger Gaddis of Ada Electric Cars in Oklahoma said earlier this year. “Is that about the coolest thing you’ve ever heard?”

The golf-cart boom has followed an IRS ruling that golf carts qualify for the electric-car credit as long as they are also road worthy. These qualifying golf carts are essentially the same as normal golf carts save for adding some safety features, such as side and rearview mirrors and three-point seat belts. They typically can go 15 to 25 miles per hour.

In South Carolina, sales of these carts have been soaring as dealerships alert customers to Uncle Sam’s giveaway. “The Golf Cart Man” in the Villages of Lady Lake, Florida is running a banner online ad that declares: “GET A FREE GOLF CART. Or make $2,000 doing absolutely nothing!”

Golf Cart Man is referring to his offer in which you can buy the cart for $8,000, get a $5,300 tax credit off your 2009 income tax, lease it back for $100 a month for 27 months, at which point Golf Cart Man will buy back the cart for $2,000. “This means you own a free Golf Cart or made $2,000 cash doing absolutely nothing!!!” You can’t blame a guy for exploiting loopholes that Congress offers.

This is obviously the Obama administration’s attempt to reach across the aisle to the rich country club Republicans.

Pardon us, but this story makes us want to go whack a few balls.

Source: Wall Street Journal

I HATE THE MEDIA ™
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