spending almost another trillion on items such as this is any different? The few, and the key word few jobs that these will create will only last for a very very short term. Then its back to unemployment. The only difference is that we are a trillion more in debt satellite internet service to the Chinese. If you hated bushes spending, they why in the world would you want anyone to spend this much more? Just look what they are spending it on. And yes, this is as of today. President-elect Obama’s transition team is promising that its $700 billion, or $850 billion, numark or $1 trillion, or whatever it now is “stimulus” won’t include pork-barrel spending. They must not have talked to the nation’s mayors, who recently responded to Mr. Obama’s request to compile their priority list of “shovel-ready” projects. By all accounts, the $73 billion wish list may skywalker trampoline be the largest collection of parochial spending projects in American history. Strolling through the 800 pages, we found such beauties as: $1 million to upgrade the Los Angeles County Convention Center elevated “catwalk” for cameras and lighting; $350,000 for an Albuquerque, N.M., fitness center; $94 million for a parking garage at the portable air conditioner Orange Bowl in Miami; $4.5 million for Gretna, Florida, to bottle water with recyclable bottles; a $35 million music hall of fame in Florissant, Missouri, and $3.1 million for a swimming pool in Tulsa. Oh, and desperate Santa Barbara, Calif., respectfully requests portable air conditioners $80,000 for a tennis facility; Savannah, Georgia, would like to build a children’s museum; Ventura, Calif., wants $6 million to renovate the beach at Surfers Point, and Durham, N.C., home of the Durham Bulls, wants to construct the first Minor League Baseball Hall of Fame. Dayton, Ohio, wants $1.5 million to reduce prostitution with education programs, home loans and Ponce, Puerto Rico wants $5.7 million to improve its cruise ship terminal (which will create all of 60 jobs). We could go on. No doubt some of these proposals would enhance urban life, but then why can’t loans for blacklisted peoplethe cities build them with their own money? Perhaps because the projects don’t really measure up against more urgent local priorities. But when the federal taxpayer does the financing, everything suddenly becomes affordable. If Durham wants a tourist destination, how about hitting up Kevin Costner, Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins, who did so well by the film “Bull Durham”? The other bean bag chairs truth about most of these projects is that they don’t come close to representing an economic “stimulus.” They may put a few people to work for a while, albeit while taking money out bunk beds of the private economy to pay for them. But the test for a useful public project should be whether it contributes to a net increase in productivity after accounting for that lost private investment. It’s only bad spending when its spent on defense and job creation. If you spend it on any liberal idea its a good thing. Just ask them, they will tell you.
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