More Wasteful Stimulus Spending
With the latest jobs report showing an unemployment rate of 9.6 percent, it is indisputable that President Obama's stimulus plan failed in its central goal of keeping unemployment below 8 percent. But the $787 billion stimulus bill has been a waste of taxpayer money in other ways, as well.
Congressional investigations indicate the Obama administration has spent up to $192 million on road signs promoting the stimulus. Oklahomans may have seen signs proclaiming road construction "funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act." With tangible stimulus-generated results in very short supply, the White House is eager to advertise any activity produced by the stimulus. However, administration officials are not so enthusiastic about divulging the cost of the signs.
Republican members of the House Committee on Oversight and Government have requested expenditure information from the relevant government agencies, but the response has been incomplete at best.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) received over $7 billion in stimulus funds. When called to account for how the money was spent, agency officials reported that the EPA "did not have information on the total cost of posting signs, logos or emblems" and, therefore, "cannot provide an assessment of the total cost."
Information provided by the General Services Administration was similarly lacking in specifics. That agency just supplied cost information for a fraction of the signs related to its stimulus-funded projects.
The Department of Transportation reported that it had spent $8.2 million of stimulus funds on signs but did not disclose how it arrived at that figure or whether it included all the signs purchased.
The American people have made their feelings about taxpayer-funded stimulus propaganda very clear. A proposal to prevent funding for the signs was the top vote-getter during House Republicans' YouCut initiative, which allowed citizens to choose their top spending cut priorities. Obama's own stimulus oversight official admits that 40 percent of complaints received by their hotline are related to the signs.
Even if signage costs make up only a small fraction of total stimulus funds, the practice is still problematic. At any cost, using stimulus funds for such a frivolous, self-serving purpose constitutes wasteful spending at a time when we can ill afford it. The Congressional Budget Office recently reported that the deficit for fiscal year 2010 is $1.3 trillion. The announcement marks the second year in a row that the federal deficit has exceeded $1 trillion. It is important to emphasize how drastic these figures are in the context of U.S. history. Prior to 2009, the largest federal deficit recorded was $459 billion.
We must not allow this disturbing new trend of trillion-dollar deficits to continue for a third year. Restoring fiscal sanity requires eliminating every bit of wasteful spending we can find -- not creating new expenditures to advertise other government expenditures, which is exactly what the stimulus signs do.
Congressional conservatives included plans in the Pledge to America governing agenda to cancel remaining stimulus funds and begin returning fiscal discipline to the federal government. Eliminating wasteful signs promoting the failed stimulus would be an excellent place to start.
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