Have you seen the stimulus bill hard at work?

After a flurry of stimulus spending, questionable projects pile up

By: Susan Ferrechio

Chief Congressional Correspondent

November 3, 2009





The $787 billion stimulus bill was passed in February and was promised as a job saver and economy booster. Here is where some of the money went:



- $300,000 for a GPS-equipped helicopter to hunt for radioactive rabbit droppings at the Hanford nuclear reservation in Washington state.



- $30 million for a spring training baseball complex for the Arizona Diamondbacks and Colorado Rockies.



- $11 million for Microsoft to build a bridge connecting its two headquarter campuses in Redmond, Wash., which are separated by a highway.



- $430,000 to repair a bridge in Iowa County, Wis., that carries 10 or fewer cars per day.



- $800,000 for the John Murtha Airport in Johnstown, Pa., serving about 20 passengers per day, to build a backup runway.



- $219,000 for Syracuse University to study the sex lives of freshmen women.



- $2.3 million for the U.S. Forest Service to rear large numbers of arthropods, including the Asian longhorned beetle, the nun moth and the woolly adelgid.



- $3.4 million for a 13-foot tunnel for turtles and other wildlife attempting to cross U.S. 27 in Lake Jackson, Fla.



- $1.15 million to install a guardrail for a persistently dry lake bed in Guymon, Okla.



- $9.38 million to renovate a century-old train depot in Lancaster County, Pa., that has not been used for three decades.



- $2.5 million in stimulus checks sent to the deceased.



- $6 million for a snow-making facility in Duluth, Minn.



- $173,834 to weatherize eight pickup trucks in Madison County, Ill.



- $20,000 for a fish sperm freezer at the Gavins Point National Fish Hatchery in South Dakota.



- $380,000 to spay and neuter pets in Wichita, Kan.



- $300 apiece for thousands of signs at road construction sites across the country announcing that the projects are funded by stimulus money.



- $1.5 million for a fence to block would-be jumpers from leaping off the All-American Bridge in Akron, Ohio.



- $1 million to study the health effects of environmentally friendly public housing on 300 people in Chicago.



- $356,000 for Indiana University to study childhood comprehension of foreign accents compared with native speech.



- $983,952 for street beautification in Ann Arbor, Mich., including decorative lighting, trees, benches and bike paths.



- $148,438 for Washington State University to analyze the use of marijuana in conjunction with medications like morphine.



- $462,000 to purchase 22 concrete toilets for use in the Mark Twain National Forest in Missouri



- $3.1 million to transform a canal barge into a floating museum that will travel the Erie Canal in New York state.



- $1.3 million on government arts jobs in Maine, including $30,000 for basket makers, $20,000 for storytelling and $12,500 for a music festival.



- $71,000 for a hybrid car to be used by student drivers in Colchester, Vt., as well as a plug-in hybrid for town workers decked out with a sign touting the vehicle's energy efficiency.



- $1 million for Portland, Ore., to replace 100 aging bike lockers and build a garage that would house 250 bicycles.



Real nice, eh?Have you seen the stimulus bill hard at work?
I'm not surprised with anything thing this incompetent administration does.
Dang, I bet all of them was his buddies, and they put huge chunks of that in their own pockets, for supporting that liar to get into office.Have you seen the stimulus bill hard at work?
Yes! We are using it as toilet paper --a sheet at a time--Now with the Pelosi Health Plan we are in no need of more toilet paper for the rest of the year!
Yes, my blood pressure is stimulated now.Have you seen the stimulus bill hard at work?
Whole lotta road works earlier this year.



The business I work at got a nice stimulus check too.
Oh yeah, what an effective use of our hard earned money we're forking over in extra taxes.



How's that Hope %26amp; Change working out for ya?
Out of curiosity, I used one of you claims, and I investigated it.



You can go to recovery.gov and see what is being spent where and on what. You don't need to repeat or listen to lies.



You claimed this:





$9.38 million to renovate a century-old train depot in Lancaster County, Pa., that has not been used for three decades.



I found this,and my guess is the rest of your chain email is similar:



Media deceptively claim stimulus funds going to "train station" that "hasn't been used in 30 years"

June 17, 2009 2:26 pm ET





SUMMARY: Media figures repeated Sen. Tom Coburn's claim that stimulus funds are being used "to renovate an abandoned train station that hasn't been used in 30 years." But while the station house has long been closed, "[t]he station's platform currently serves more than 80,000 passengers a year," as Coburn's report noted.