Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Coburn Highlights Stimulus Waste   [Mark Hemingway]

Senator Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), one of the few in Congress who remain extremely vigilant about wasteful spending, released a report this morning on the Stimulus package — 100 Stimulus Projects: A Second Opinion. The report highlights a hundred examples of waste in the stimulus package. According to the press release, here are the top ten (we've already written about a few of these on the Corner):

1. $1.5 million in “free” stimulus money for a new wastewater treatment plant results in higher utility costs for residents of Perkins, Oklahoma.

2. $1 billion for FutureGen in Mattoon, Illinois is the “biggest earmark of all time” for a power plant that may never work.

3. $15 million for “shovel-ready” repairs to little-used bridges in rural Wisconsin are given priority over widely used bridges that are structurally deficient.

4. $800,000 for little-used John Murtha Airport in Johnstown, Pennsylvania airport to repave a back-up runway; the ‘Airport for Nobody’ Has Already Received Tens of Millions in Taxpayer dollars.

5. $3.4 million for a wildlife “eco-passage” in Florida to take animals safely under a busy roadway.

6. Nevada non-profit gets $2 million weatherization contract after recently being fired for same type of work.

7. $1.15 million for installation of a new guard rail for the non-existent Optima Lake in Oklahoma.

8. Nearly $10 million to renovate an abandoned train station that hasn’t been used in 30 years.

9. 10,000 dead people get stimulus checks, but the Social Security Administration blames a tough deadline.

10. Town of Union, New York, encouraged to spend a $578,000 grant it did not request for a homelessness problem it claims it does not have.

You can download the full report here. If you have any interesting insight into any of the wasteful items in the report — maybe you live nearby and are familiar with the local politics — email me.

06/16 09:23 AMShare