The Stimulus of 76248

In the light of this recent post, I took a closer look at www.recovery.gov, to see how my area was being treated by this catastrophe of legislation. To wit, it has been a colossal failure, an unparalleled crusade against my kids future, and criminally deceptive to the American people.

Recovery.gov is "the U.S. government’s official website providing easy access to data
related to Recovery Act spending and allows for the reporting of potential fraud, waste, and abuse."

Sure. The site cost $27.5 million to develop, where similar sites such as USAspending.gov ring in well under $1 million, so I trust in the Orwellian newspeak of its description.

With little ado, I punch in my zip code, 76248.

My district has no contracts.

My district has some grants, totaling $6,203,318.

My district claims to have job creation as a result of this totaling 2 new jobs.

WHAT???

We spend $6.3 million to create two jobs?

Does. Not. Compute.

Curious, I tried to look into where the grants went near me.

Ok, so $155,000 went to retrofitting Keller City buildings to make it more energy efficient, and that grant comes from the Dept. of Energy.

$2,728,850 to Northwest Independent School District, largely for disability compliance.

$69,008 to Westlake for disability compliance, that mysteriously creates a job.

$6,136,385 to Keller Independent School District, $5.4 million of which is for disability compliance, the rest for preschool development and "Improving Basic Programs Operated by Local Educational Agencies"

$10,933 to the City of Keller for the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant Formula program, to be pooled with the grants of 19 other municipalities to combat crime, under the jurisdiction of Tarrant County.

$24,188 to the City of Watauga for the same program. (Why did the smaller city get more funding for this program? Why is there any federal funding for this program?)

I found a contract for Hastech Solutions to do electrical work in Connecticut for the Army Corp of Engineers, $33,000. How that is efficient or cost effective, I don't know. The closed bidding process for this contract makes me suspicious however, and in light of the rest of this program, dubious.

The simply unimaginable amount of wealth poured into the city streets for this stimulus plan staggers the mind, the calculator, and certainly the bureaucracy.

I encourage you to look up your own zip code and look around, and see if the $3.1 million per job 'created' is the norm. (I still maintain this job creation figures have no basis in reality, and are simply used to fill in wonderful spreadsheets by some mindless drone buried deep within the heaving bowels of the Federal operation.)