Stimulus Money Expands Govt.

The fraud-infested $787 billion stimulus that was supposed to jump start the economy and put Americans back to work is failing miserably though it has somehow managed to substantially enlarge the federal government.

The only real thing President Obama’s precious recovery package has stimulated is growth in the federal government, according to a news report, that reveals Uncle Sam has hired 25,000 new workers this year and spent tens of billions of dollars to oversee and implement stimulus funds. More than a dozen federal agencies, that combined spent $46.1 billion in stimulus money, also spent nearly $200 million on salaries related to stimulus administrative expenses. 

During the government’s spending spree national unemployment continued soaring, increasing by nearly 4 million. One Republican lawmaker from California correctly points out that Obama’s stimulus package has enlarged the federal bureaucracy without making a dent in the nation’s unemployment rate. 

This is hardly earth-shattering news. In the last few months various reports have exposed the pervasive fraud that has corrupted the massive stimulus program, undoubtedly contributing to its failure. Millions have been lost to waste, fraud and abuse as well as highly questionable projects that are unlikely to fulfill any of the plan’s goals.

A scathing U.S. Senate report (A Second Opinion on the Stimulus) documents tens of millions of dollars in wasteful stimulus projects and predicts that at least $55 billion will be lost to fraud and abuse by the time all the money is spent. Other examples of waste include $1 million in stimulus money for nearly 4,000 jailed convicts—including murderers and rapists—and Social Security checks mailed to 10,000 dead people. 

Additionally, $15 million went to a seldom-used checkpoint in an isolated Great Plains town with influential politicians and more than $1 billion to dozens of highly questionable projects at remote airports that didn’t meet the grant criteria and to facilities with a history of mismanaging federal money.