Stimulus Waste
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darkdog
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Are you defending Obama by comparing him to Bush? Didn't that used to be a way to attack someone?
The money should have gone to places that really need the use of it. IT would help alot with sidewalks in areas that don't have it like where people had to walk on the grass.
Bebonang
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This is ridiculous that someone have the nerve to write up about stimulus waste. I think this page is doctored up to make every one to believe that it is a waste and the repairs including the sites are real. I don't believe this stuff. What is the Republicans are trying to prove? I hate it when it always point to the President for his fault. Good Grief!!!! :roll:
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Oh.....so this is just more "politics as usual"????
But, I don't remeber seeing Bush spend an $800 billion chunk at one time on crap like this while promising unemployment would not rise above 8%....
Perhaps you are forgetting I wasn't a Bush fan either.
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Then perhaps you should google Harvard Robotic bees and see for yourself.
While you are at it look up stimulus turtle bridges too.
or the money given to Duke so students could go to Costa Rica......that created alot of jobs :roll:
or how much Ohio spent on signs letting drivers know thw stimulus was "At Work"
http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/01/25/kaye.signs/index.html
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More?
The College Waste Projects
1. 31.3 million to Corinthian Colleges, Inc.
Corinthian Colleges are a for-profit education company that has often been scrutinized and the focus of federal probes. According to Stimulus Checkup, 83 lawsuits have been leveled against them.
The 31.3 million was given through an increase in Pell Grants, which 70% of Corinthian students recieved.
2. $1.57 million to Penn State to look for dinosaurs in...Argentina
While looking for dinosaurs is cool and certainly helps further science, how does this create jobs or spur economic activity? The money used by Penn State will fund researchers to work in another country. Much of the $1.57 million will go to Argentina's economy not ours.
The team of four using this grant are researchers and professors with existing jobs. Also two of researchers are not employed in the United States.
3. $1.1 million to Oklahoma State University to study the role of grandparents in Alaska.
Funded through stimulus money funneled through the National Science Foundation, this grant will fund Professor Tammy Henderson and two new hires at OSU to travel to Alaska and study grandparents in rural, semi-urban and urban areas.
According to Henderson:
"Is it fair? Um, I do not feel that the political answer is one that I should take as a university professor. But I will tell you as a professor who is trying to change the world by giving it good science and good theory it was a good thing to do."
4. $950,000 to Arizona State University and the University of Arizona to study ants.
Through a partnership of the universities, this National Science Foundation grant will, "examine larval development, ant caste systems, and ―colony fitness. The University of Arizona will use the information to, 'develop ―a model [for ants] to determine the optimal strategy for distributing specialists in a variable work environment.'"
Through this project, 4.92 jobs will be saved. While we're questioning what a .92 job is, an article on AZCentral.com captures what you're probably thinking:
But some projects are head-scratchers, at least to critics. They involve arcane research; do not address immediate, essential public needs; or don't create or save many jobs. Such projects aren't taboo under the stimulus but have drawn fire from lawmakers who argue they do little to help the economy or industry.
5. $564,635 to Duke University to send undergraduates to Costa Rica for the summer
For the next five summers, lucky undergraduates will get a free trip to Costa Rica to study the rainforest. According to Stimulus Checkup:
Each year, ten students will participate in an eight-week program at the La Selva Biological Station in Costa Rica. Students will also be given a chance to experience Costa Rica‘s ―ecotourism‖ opportunities—a brochure likewise boasts, ―A short bus ride from there takes you to the capital city of San Jose, where you can experience the full variety of Tico‘ culture ad cuisine
Once again, this stimulus project will send Recovery dollars outside of the country to stimulate another economy.
Duke has also been tremendously successful in obtaining grants from the Recovery Act. They even created a web site to catalog all of their funding.
6. $389,357 to State University of New York-Buffalo to study young adults who drink malt liquor and smoke weed.
Funds will pay 100 test subjects $45 to keep a journal of their daily malt liquor drinking and marijuana smoking usages. According to researchers, "malt liquor consumption is an understudied topic."
While this grant will be putting a small amount of money into the US economy, it also encourages drug trafficking since it is illegal to purchase marijuana in the U.S. Other portions of this grant will be used to hire additional researchers.
The SUNY system also has its own web site devoted to Recovery grants.
7.$233,825 to UC-San Diego and Georgetown University to study exit polling in...Africa
Once again, stimulus funds will be used to stimulate economies in other countries. The project will send four graduate students and one undergraduate to Africa, which will, "result in a robust understanding of how Africans vote, which will in turn allow for a better targeting our external aid funds aimed at promoting democracy on the continent."
Just how many jobs does this create? According to StimulusWatch.org, this project will result in .17 full-time job (FTE) for the principal investigator, .19 FTE for graduate students at UCSD, .44 FTE for gradute student researchers at Georgetown and 7.29 FTE for polling workers a a sub-grant award in Africa.
Not only will this grant result in a couple hours of employment per week for select graduate students at UCSD and Georgetown, it will hire seven people in Africa. Where does the Recovery Act specifiy employment for people in Africa?
8.$221,355 to Indiana University to study why young men do not like using condoms
Stimulus Checklist reports that this study will:
...advance our understanding of…the role of cognitive and affective processes and condom application skills in explaining problems with condom use in young, heterosexual adult men, and to create ―education strategies tailored to the needs of individuals who have trouble using condoms effectively.
The National Institutes of Health notes that this project will show:
Consistent and correct use of condoms can be a highly effective method of preventing the transmission of HIV and many STIs, yet studies show that problems with condom use are common. This project is one of the first to examine under controlled conditions the role of cognitive and affective factors and condom skills in explaining condom use problems in young, heterosexual adult men.
9. $219,000 for a National Institutes of Health study examining the "hookup" behavior of female college students
This NIH study will examine the link between alcohol use and hooking up. Researchers at Syracuse University will recruit 500 income freshmen women and contact them monthly for a year to, "document sexual hookups, noting when there is alcohol involved."
The researchers could save $219,000 and just ask current college students about the link between alcohol and engaging in sexual activities.
Also note the design of the study. This requires 500 underage women to voluntarily detail their illegal activities on campus. Since freshmen students are typically under 21, any alcohol consumption is illegal. The study also requires young women to volunteer details about inebriated sexual encounters.
Michael Carey, the researcher behind the study told the Syracuse Post-Standard:
"I did not prepare an application to create jobs or stimulate the economy," he said. "I prepared an application of scientific study to address an important public health problem and I think that is a valuable contribution to society.
10. $210,000 to the University of Hawaii to study how honeybees learn
This grant, which hires one research assistant, will conduct, "behavioral experiments with honeybees focused on short-term memory, concept learning, and relational learning."
11.$150,00 to Carnegie Mellon University to develop super-football gloves
Football is undoubtedly important to many colleges but does developing the next generation in football gloves spur economic growth?
The Business Times reports:
Some of the government funding has also gone to what was clearly the domain of private enterprise. NanoGriptech, a company that is barely a year old, was given US$150,000 to develop technology mimicking the sticky feet of geckos - to ultimately produce better football gloves.
While it seems that $150,00 would go a long way towards developing a new type of glove, Stimulus Checkup reports:
Professor Metin Sitti with Carnegie Mellon University has already collected $450,000 in federal money for his project.166 While in the long run, Dr. Sitti is most interested in developing applications to help robots climb difficult surfaces, in the short run he is hopeful to use his adhesive materials for ―sports gloves specifically designed to provide increased grip to a football surface.
12. $95,000 at the University of Massachusetts-Boston to study pollen from the Viking age
This award is described as, "uising pollen to assess local environmental variation during the viking age." What it will do is hire a graduate assistant to count pollen grains that were collected from farms in Iceland. This data is supposed to shed light on how environmental changes effected the Viking Age.
According to David Williams, president of Citizens Against Government Waste told the Boston Globe, "People are scratching their heads because some of this doesn’t make sense. Studying pollen during the Viking Age isn’t going to create a lot of jobs and help the economy.’’
13. $49,818 to the University of Alaska at Fairbanks to attend the global warming conference in Alaska
Remember the Copenhagen conference that's been in the news? Stimulus funds are paying for 11 students and four teachers from the University of Alaska to attend the UN's Convention of Climate Change.
According to the grant description:
...attendance at COP15 will encourage Rural Development students' interest in science and to pursue science degrees in greater numbers. In addition to attending the convention, the students will meet with students and faculty from the Department of Eskimology at the University of Copenhagen, the International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs, the Indigenous People's Secretariat of the Arctic Council, and the Greenland Home Rule Government while in Copenhagen.
While the trip will certainly be enlightening for the 11 students, it won't create any jobs or help improve the economy. Well, it will help improve the economy of Copenhagen. Stimuls Checkup also points out:
...a trip from Alaska to Copenhagen, Denmark for all 15 passengers will result in the emission of 53,940 pounds of carbon dioxide from the air travel alone. In Fairbanks, that is the same amount of carbon emissions produced to heat and light approximately two single family homes for an entire year.
14. $30,000 to the University of Maryland to determine if meth is a rat aphrodisiac
Researchers will study if using methamphetamines, "gives female rats an overpowering desire to have sex."
The Baltimore Sun interviewed the university officials and the doctoral student, Mary K. Holder, who submitted the grant:
Mary K. Holder, the Baltimore graduate student who received the research grant from a unit of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, said she hoped that her findings might be helpful in treating meth abuse. Holder said in her grant application that the study would explore "the molecular underpinnings" of meth-induced sexual behavior and would use immunocytochemistry and other advanced techniques to examine the drug's impact on brain cells in rats.
15. $8,408 to Florida Atlantic University to study if mice get drunk
This grant will examine the connection between rats and "spatial navigation" after they have consumed alcohol. Scientists designed this study after noticing that "...human who consume alcohol have trouble with 'navigation, memory, and attention."
With the funding, Robert Stackman, the psychology professor in charge of the project, hired two additional research assistants. He told the Herald-Tribune in Sarasota, Fla. that he is, "looking at what parts of the brain are affected by ethanol, the type of alcohol found in alcoholic beverages, and their connection with the ability to navigate. Think drunk driving."
http://www.campusreform.org/blog/stimulus-waste
The College Waste Projects
1. 31.3 million to Corinthian Colleges, Inc.
Corinthian Colleges are a for-profit education company that has often been scrutinized and the focus of federal probes. According to Stimulus Checkup, 83 lawsuits have been leveled against them.
The 31.3 million was given through an increase in Pell Grants, which 70% of Corinthian students recieved.
2. $1.57 million to Penn State to look for dinosaurs in...Argentina
While looking for dinosaurs is cool and certainly helps further science, how does this create jobs or spur economic activity? The money used by Penn State will fund researchers to work in another country. Much of the $1.57 million will go to Argentina's economy not ours.
The team of four using this grant are researchers and professors with existing jobs. Also two of researchers are not employed in the United States.
3. $1.1 million to Oklahoma State University to study the role of grandparents in Alaska.
Funded through stimulus money funneled through the National Science Foundation, this grant will fund Professor Tammy Henderson and two new hires at OSU to travel to Alaska and study grandparents in rural, semi-urban and urban areas.
According to Henderson:
"Is it fair? Um, I do not feel that the political answer is one that I should take as a university professor. But I will tell you as a professor who is trying to change the world by giving it good science and good theory it was a good thing to do."
4. $950,000 to Arizona State University and the University of Arizona to study ants.
Through a partnership of the universities, this National Science Foundation grant will, "examine larval development, ant caste systems, and ―colony fitness. The University of Arizona will use the information to, 'develop ―a model [for ants] to determine the optimal strategy for distributing specialists in a variable work environment.'"
Through this project, 4.92 jobs will be saved. While we're questioning what a .92 job is, an article on AZCentral.com captures what you're probably thinking:
But some projects are head-scratchers, at least to critics. They involve arcane research; do not address immediate, essential public needs; or don't create or save many jobs. Such projects aren't taboo under the stimulus but have drawn fire from lawmakers who argue they do little to help the economy or industry.
5. $564,635 to Duke University to send undergraduates to Costa Rica for the summer
For the next five summers, lucky undergraduates will get a free trip to Costa Rica to study the rainforest. According to Stimulus Checkup:
Each year, ten students will participate in an eight-week program at the La Selva Biological Station in Costa Rica. Students will also be given a chance to experience Costa Rica‘s ―ecotourism‖ opportunities—a brochure likewise boasts, ―A short bus ride from there takes you to the capital city of San Jose, where you can experience the full variety of Tico‘ culture ad cuisine
Once again, this stimulus project will send Recovery dollars outside of the country to stimulate another economy.
Duke has also been tremendously successful in obtaining grants from the Recovery Act. They even created a web site to catalog all of their funding.
6. $389,357 to State University of New York-Buffalo to study young adults who drink malt liquor and smoke weed.
Funds will pay 100 test subjects $45 to keep a journal of their daily malt liquor drinking and marijuana smoking usages. According to researchers, "malt liquor consumption is an understudied topic."
While this grant will be putting a small amount of money into the US economy, it also encourages drug trafficking since it is illegal to purchase marijuana in the U.S. Other portions of this grant will be used to hire additional researchers.
The SUNY system also has its own web site devoted to Recovery grants.
7.$233,825 to UC-San Diego and Georgetown University to study exit polling in...Africa
Once again, stimulus funds will be used to stimulate economies in other countries. The project will send four graduate students and one undergraduate to Africa, which will, "result in a robust understanding of how Africans vote, which will in turn allow for a better targeting our external aid funds aimed at promoting democracy on the continent."
Just how many jobs does this create? According to StimulusWatch.org, this project will result in .17 full-time job (FTE) for the principal investigator, .19 FTE for graduate students at UCSD, .44 FTE for gradute student researchers at Georgetown and 7.29 FTE for polling workers a a sub-grant award in Africa.
Not only will this grant result in a couple hours of employment per week for select graduate students at UCSD and Georgetown, it will hire seven people in Africa. Where does the Recovery Act specifiy employment for people in Africa?
8.$221,355 to Indiana University to study why young men do not like using condoms
Stimulus Checklist reports that this study will:
...advance our understanding of…the role of cognitive and affective processes and condom application skills in explaining problems with condom use in young, heterosexual adult men, and to create ―education strategies tailored to the needs of individuals who have trouble using condoms effectively.
The National Institutes of Health notes that this project will show:
Consistent and correct use of condoms can be a highly effective method of preventing the transmission of HIV and many STIs, yet studies show that problems with condom use are common. This project is one of the first to examine under controlled conditions the role of cognitive and affective factors and condom skills in explaining condom use problems in young, heterosexual adult men.
9. $219,000 for a National Institutes of Health study examining the "hookup" behavior of female college students
This NIH study will examine the link between alcohol use and hooking up. Researchers at Syracuse University will recruit 500 income freshmen women and contact them monthly for a year to, "document sexual hookups, noting when there is alcohol involved."
The researchers could save $219,000 and just ask current college students about the link between alcohol and engaging in sexual activities.
Also note the design of the study. This requires 500 underage women to voluntarily detail their illegal activities on campus. Since freshmen students are typically under 21, any alcohol consumption is illegal. The study also requires young women to volunteer details about inebriated sexual encounters.
Michael Carey, the researcher behind the study told the Syracuse Post-Standard:
"I did not prepare an application to create jobs or stimulate the economy," he said. "I prepared an application of scientific study to address an important public health problem and I think that is a valuable contribution to society.
10. $210,000 to the University of Hawaii to study how honeybees learn
This grant, which hires one research assistant, will conduct, "behavioral experiments with honeybees focused on short-term memory, concept learning, and relational learning."
11.$150,00 to Carnegie Mellon University to develop super-football gloves
Football is undoubtedly important to many colleges but does developing the next generation in football gloves spur economic growth?
The Business Times reports:
Some of the government funding has also gone to what was clearly the domain of private enterprise. NanoGriptech, a company that is barely a year old, was given US$150,000 to develop technology mimicking the sticky feet of geckos - to ultimately produce better football gloves.
While it seems that $150,00 would go a long way towards developing a new type of glove, Stimulus Checkup reports:
Professor Metin Sitti with Carnegie Mellon University has already collected $450,000 in federal money for his project.166 While in the long run, Dr. Sitti is most interested in developing applications to help robots climb difficult surfaces, in the short run he is hopeful to use his adhesive materials for ―sports gloves specifically designed to provide increased grip to a football surface.
12. $95,000 at the University of Massachusetts-Boston to study pollen from the Viking age
This award is described as, "uising pollen to assess local environmental variation during the viking age." What it will do is hire a graduate assistant to count pollen grains that were collected from farms in Iceland. This data is supposed to shed light on how environmental changes effected the Viking Age.
According to David Williams, president of Citizens Against Government Waste told the Boston Globe, "People are scratching their heads because some of this doesn’t make sense. Studying pollen during the Viking Age isn’t going to create a lot of jobs and help the economy.’’
13. $49,818 to the University of Alaska at Fairbanks to attend the global warming conference in Alaska
Remember the Copenhagen conference that's been in the news? Stimulus funds are paying for 11 students and four teachers from the University of Alaska to attend the UN's Convention of Climate Change.
According to the grant description:
...attendance at COP15 will encourage Rural Development students' interest in science and to pursue science degrees in greater numbers. In addition to attending the convention, the students will meet with students and faculty from the Department of Eskimology at the University of Copenhagen, the International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs, the Indigenous People's Secretariat of the Arctic Council, and the Greenland Home Rule Government while in Copenhagen.
While the trip will certainly be enlightening for the 11 students, it won't create any jobs or help improve the economy. Well, it will help improve the economy of Copenhagen. Stimuls Checkup also points out:
...a trip from Alaska to Copenhagen, Denmark for all 15 passengers will result in the emission of 53,940 pounds of carbon dioxide from the air travel alone. In Fairbanks, that is the same amount of carbon emissions produced to heat and light approximately two single family homes for an entire year.
14. $30,000 to the University of Maryland to determine if meth is a rat aphrodisiac
Researchers will study if using methamphetamines, "gives female rats an overpowering desire to have sex."
The Baltimore Sun interviewed the university officials and the doctoral student, Mary K. Holder, who submitted the grant:
Mary K. Holder, the Baltimore graduate student who received the research grant from a unit of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, said she hoped that her findings might be helpful in treating meth abuse. Holder said in her grant application that the study would explore "the molecular underpinnings" of meth-induced sexual behavior and would use immunocytochemistry and other advanced techniques to examine the drug's impact on brain cells in rats.
15. $8,408 to Florida Atlantic University to study if mice get drunk
This grant will examine the connection between rats and "spatial navigation" after they have consumed alcohol. Scientists designed this study after noticing that "...human who consume alcohol have trouble with 'navigation, memory, and attention."
With the funding, Robert Stackman, the psychology professor in charge of the project, hired two additional research assistants. He told the Herald-Tribune in Sarasota, Fla. that he is, "looking at what parts of the brain are affected by ethanol, the type of alcohol found in alcoholic beverages, and their connection with the ability to navigate. Think drunk driving."
http://www.campusreform.org/blog/stimulus-waste
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And it's never going to stop.......
kokonut
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And we already know that the almost $1 trillion dollar "stimulus" spending package boondoggle didn't work. It was mostly of the pork variety than an actual strategy to encourage job creation.
» An Industry by Industry Look at the Stimulus Failure - Big Government
» An Industry by Industry Look at the Stimulus Failure - Big Government
For the most part, I am in agreement. But then, I think the government, both republicans and democrats, waste a lot of money to begin with, regardless of economic stimuli.
You guys would like to say this is just Obama. The truth is, it's been going on for years. The conservative hero, Ronald Reagan, was one of the worst.
You guys would like to say this is just Obama. The truth is, it's been going on for years. The conservative hero, Ronald Reagan, was one of the worst.
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When people cover one eye, they lose depth perception. Try it and see for yourself.
kokonut
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Which is why I advocate for fiscal responsibility on spending for many years now. Last year's deficit spending of $1.4 trillion dollars and this year we're on track to to spend $1.3 trillion dollars this year in 2010, that's $2.7 trillion dollars in two years. Bush's 96 months (or 8 years) in office resulted in a deficit spending of $5.1 trillion dollars while Obama would be already more than half of that of Bush's 8 years of spending. No other president has ever spent this much and expanded the govt programs and added new ones to ensure even more spending into the future. Smart President we have now.
