If you missed this post, there is a link to a blog that is compiling 1001 reasons to vote against Obama. There are at least 600 reasons so far. But as I reviewed the first 100, which I included in my linked post, I came across a classic Obamaism that deserved special attention.
The promise to go line by line through legislation before signing it, to remove wasteful earmarks. Of course his first major piece of spending legislation was the stimulus, and what wasn’t for public sector union bailouts was wasteful earmarks.
So Mr. Obama was either lying or he is not very good at reading legislation (A common problem for Democrats, or so I hear).
“Candidate Barack Obama publicly promises to go “line by line” through legislation to remove wasteful earmarks.”
- Obama stimulus gave $200,000 to teach Siberian lawmakers how to engage Russian policy makers in Moscow.
- Stimulus funding of $250,000 went to bug storage for an insect museum at North Carolina State University that gets 44 visitors a year.
- Gave $500,000 to put microchips in recycling bins to check up on the recycling efforts of senior citizens.
- $5 million to create a geothermal energy system for the Oak Ridge City Center shopping mall in Oak Ridge, Tenn.
- $9.38 million to renovate a century-old train depot in Lancaster County, Pa., that has not been used for three decades.
- Provided $712,000 spent on a project by researchers at Northwestern University to develop “machine-generated humor.”
- Buses in Winter Haven, Florida that average two riders per hour got $2.4 million so that the two riders per hour would have brand new buses to ride on.
- A Georgia Tech assistant music professor got $760,000 so he could jam with “world renowned musicians” to “create satisfying works of art.”
- The California Academy of Sciences got $2 million dollars to send people to the Indian Ocean to photograph ants. “Everyone has run into ants … now we need to listen to them,” one ant photographer said.
- The University of North Carolina received $762,000 to create a YouTube dance application.
- $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.
- $3.4 million to create an underground turtle tunnel, or eco-passage, in Lake Jackson, Florida.
- About a half-million dollars to give smartphones to people trying to quit smoking so they could “contact their quitting support groups by text message or phone calls to prevent relapses.”
- Almost $300,000 to study how Yoga might reduce menopausal hot flashes.
- $983,952 for street beautification in Ann Arbor, Mich., including decorative lighting, trees, benches and bike paths.
- $1 million for Portland, Ore., to replace 100 aging bike lockers and build a garage that would house 250 bicycles.
- $700,000 to Oregon crab fishermen to help recover lost crab post.
- $1.5 billion for a Carbon Capturing Contest.
- $300,000 for a GPS-equipped helicopter to hunt for radioactive rabbit droppings at the Hanford nuclear reservation in Washington state.
- SUNY Buffalo received $390,000 to study young adults who drink malt liquor and smoke marijuana.
- Montana received $2.2 million to install skylights in their state-run liquor warehouse.
- $800,000 given to John Murtha Airport to repave a back runway used by about 20 passengers a day. This was in addition to millions given to this airport over the decades.
- $1 million was given to a Chicago dinner cruise company to “combat terrorism.”
- $30 million for a spring training baseball complex for the Arizona Diamondbacks and Colorado Rockies.
- The Coast Guard gets $572 million to create 1,235 new jobs. This comes to $460,000 per job.
- $11 million for Microsoft to build a bridge connecting its two headquarter campuses in Redmond, Wash., which are separated by a highway.
- $1.15 million to install a guardrail for a persistently dry lake bed in Guymon, Oklahoma.
- $2.5 million in stimulus checks sent to the deceased.
- $6 million for a snow-making facility in Duluth, Minnesota.
- Millions spent on signs advertising the “American Reinvestment and Recovery Act.”
Note 1: Democrats first response to this post will likely include something to the effect of…”well Republicans were responsible for a lot of those wasteful earmarks too.” That is probably correct. I hold them all in equal contempt. But we’re not talking about them, or their promises, we are talking about Mr. Obama and his.
Note 2: Note 1 was purposefully placed at the end of the list because most Democrats and progressives will stop reading and comment (as I have suggested) long before getting to Note 1 to discover that I have owned them in advance. Some will read this and will still write that anyway. They may also call me racist. (See here in event of my being called a racist.)
Note 3: I will entertain left wing delusions that the items listed above can be demonstrated to be something other than wasteful but that will not make it true.
List compiled by Kyle Becker
