Last week the United States celebrated an anniversary: On February 17, 2009 President Barack Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 also known as Porkulus Maximus, the progressive bill which was promised to keep unemployment under 8%. Sadly, this bill did absolutely nothing but make $800 billion dollars disappear into a Keynesian black hole only to reappear as a new unsightly layer of blubber weighing down our national debt.
What has happened in the intervening two years? Unemployment grew to over 10% and now stands at 9%; still higher than the promised 8% maximum.
The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the United States expanded 3.2 percent in the fourth quarter of 2010 over the previous quarter, not exactly a boom period especially when you consider that fourth quarter is the Christmas buying season and the White House’s GDP growth projection for the rest of 2011 a paltry 2.7%.
The numbers show the pork-laden stimulus created by the President and his progressive army did not help the economy as promised. I don’t want to give the impression that the stimulus bill has been a total failure; it has raised the art of pork barrel projects to a new level. In fact many of the projects paid for by this Keynesian incubus were — if they were done with other people’s money, rather than our tax dollars — hilarious.
For the anniversary of the signing of the stimulus, it might be appropriate to look at the worst of the worst, the most reckless, irresponsible, and inane, let’s face it: the most stupid examples of how our government spent $800 billion dollars, while leaving our nation’s economy on life support.
First: Busing prosperity somewhere else.
