The U.S. Conference of Mayors is knocking on Congress’s door for a piece of the new stimulus pie that is being discussed on Capitol Hill these days and will probably be cooked up and passed early next year under a new Obama administration. Word is the stimulus will be at least $500 billion or more.
The Conference just released a book entitled the “Mainstreet Recovery — Ready to Go Infrastructure Report.” Whew! Talk about pork-barrel! The 800-page book of ideas is just full of goodies that mayors want the federal government (THIS MEANS YOU) to pay for. After all, it’s free money to them and they “only” want a meager $73 billion. Here are some examples:
There are at least 60 requests for new parking lots and garages (or improvements to them) in the cities (and I only counted up to Florida.)Some requests include a parking facility at the Los Angeles Zoo, the Robert King High Park Soccer Field and parking lot, and a parking lot at the Orange Bowl.
Plus there are many requests to make biking enthusiasts happy, like the BMX and Dirt Bike Trails at Virginia Key Park in Florida and or a bike station at the Denver Union Station Hub in Colorado. Loads of museums…including the Scottsdale Museum of the West in Arizona, the First City Hall Renovation/Museum in Lauderhill, Florida, the Children’s Museum in Savannah, Georgia, and the Minor League Baseball Museum in Durham, N.C.
Or how about rebuilding the Municipal Tennis Stadium in Santa Barbara, Calif., or upgrading the Jax Municipal Stadium in Jacksonville, Fla., or extending the Metro Mover at the Marlins Stadium in Miami? Hey, even Lafayette High School in Lexington, Kentucky wants a new football stadium!
There are a total of 2,412 community development projects at a price of $12.6 billion; 942 projects for energy grants and “green jobs;” 628 projects for $7 billion dollars worth of transportation projects; 2,400 projects for roads that will cost $17 billion; 41 projects for Amtrak that will cost taxpayers $1 billion and create 3,600 jobs — oh wait, I mean 3,599 jobs ( as if taxpayers don’t spend enough already on this wasteful government enterprise); $3.7 billion to modernize schools (yet another local function being turned over to the Feds); $1.9 billion to improve public housing that supposedly will create 440 jobs; and 970 projects for a cost of $3.7 billion for 26,448 jobs for public safety.
Of course, the implication here is there is just plenty of money to throw around and that more government spending will help create jobs. But government doesn’t create anything, it just takes money and spreads it around to favored parties. You can do your own investigation on these future boondoggles by looking at the report here.
Filed under: Pork
[...] the Mayors’ list contains scores of projects which could be easily defined as ineffective and wasteful, the $35.95 million for High School and [...]
[...] the Mayors’ list contains scores of projects which could be easily defined as ineffective and wasteful, the $35.95 million for High School and [...]
[...] government’s handing out money, let’s see who get’s in line. One of them is the U.S. Conference of Mayors. Hey, they want some of that money, to the tune of $73 Billion. What’s $73 Billion? Chicken [...]
Eakins or his circle of friends during Eakins’s lifetime.
My daughter is a student at Lafayette High School. That football stadium has been in plans for a decade now. This is not a *new* project designed to spend stimulus money! This money was previously budgeted and the work began last fall. BEFORE the stimulus package! This is by far the oldest stadium in the county, and has serious drainage problems. Every other school in the county has a shiny new stadium except this school. They’ve waited patiently and the teams have been doing fundraisers for years to help raise money for that. The Girls Soccer team had to raise $20,000 dollars. You can imagine what the Football team had to pay.
Before you go harping on projects and call them wasteful, do your research.
Stephanie…why dont you explain to me why YOUR stadium should be paid for by ME? Will my kids get to play in it? I live hundreds of miles from Kentucky. Building school stadiums are what YOUR property taxes are for…that is what YOUR state taxes are for. Federal taxes should only be spent on things that are important to the whole country.
Why is it MY problem that YOUR local elected politicians cannot set priorities? Should I demand that YOUR tax dollars pay for MY hospital’s emergency room? Of course not.
Pay for your own stadium and leave the rest of the country out of it.