Washington, February 16, 2012 - February 17, 2012 marks the three year anniversary of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, better known as the "stimulus" package, being signed into law. This makes it a fitting time to reflect on all of the projects the stimulus funded. It took little to no time to find a list of ridiculous, wasteful projects, some of which are listed below. Even worse, the American people are responsible for paying for all of these outrageous projects. 

• $186, 192 for 8 new Dodge Grand Caravans were purchased Jan 2011, and by October 2011, all 8 vans were sitting unused in a storage at a county park 
• $424,000 to install electric battery charges at TR Auto Truck Plaza (truck stop), which is now bankrupt. A review of public records shows evidence that the owner’s past and present finances were rocky.
• $230 million given to communities to “combat obesity,” some of which was then used on advertising against American-made products like Coke and Pepsi.
• Federal government’s site to track stimulus money, Recovery.gov, listed more than 400 fake districts across America where jobs were saved because of the stimulus.
• $10 million went to Operation Gunrunner, also known as Fast and Furious, which led to the death of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry. Attorney General Eric Holder has since been questioned in the House and Senate, where his testimony indicated that he may have lied to Congress.
• $2,096,000 to Greenbrier Valley Airport, where only 2 commercial flights come in daily with an average of 6 passengers and the local hotel costs $500 a night, to spruce up the terminal building.
• $9.38 million to renovate a century-old train depot that hasn’t been used in 30 yrs
• $100,000 for socially conscious puppet shows in Minnesota
• $2 million to build a replica railroad tourist attraction in Carson City, Nevada 
• $462,000 to purchase 22 concrete toilets ($21,000 each) to be used in a forest 
• $3.1 million to transform a canal barge into a floating museum in Erie Canal
• $3.4 million to create an underground turtle tunnel, aka “eco-passage,” so they won’t get hit by traffic 
• $983,952 for street lighting, trees, benches and bike paths in Ann Arbor Michigan
• $1 million to replace 100 bike lockers and a bike garage
• $700,000 to Oregon crab fisherman to help recover lost crab post
• $300,00 for GPS equipped helicopter to hunt for radioactive rabbit droppings in Washington state
• $389,357 to study young adults who drink malt liquor and smoke marijuana
• $148,438 to Washington State University to analyze the use of marijuana in conjunction with medicines like morphine.
• $15.8 million for 37 rural bridges in Wisconsin that average 568 cars daily, some less than 10
• $2.2 million to Montana to install skylights in their state-run liquor warehouse
• $800,000 to John Murtha Airport to repave runway – the airport serves 20 passengers daily
• $943,190 to a Chicago dinner cruise company to “combat terrorism”
• $30 million for a spring training baseball complex for the Arizona Diamondbacks and the Colorado Rockies
• $11 million for Microsoft to build a bridge connecting its two headquarter campuses in Washington state
• $1.15 million for a guardrail around a persistently dry lake bed 
• $18 million in stimulus checks to dead people
• $6 million for a snow-making facility in Duluth, MN
• $554,763 to replace windows in a Washington state forest visitors center that isn’t used and has no plans to be used
• $762,372 to develop “Dance Tube,” an interactive dance software
• $1.9 million to send researchers to Southwest Indian Ocean Islands and east Africa to capture, photograph and analyze thousands of ants.
• $89,298 to replace a quarter-mile stretch of sidewalk that was replaced 5 yrs ago
• $712,883 to develop a joke machine 
• $762,372 for a music professor to study improv-music, which will involve him jamming with musicians to “hopefully also create satisfying works of art.”
• $420,000 to Buffalo, NY to hire “experts” to help people hook up digital converter boxes, which the federal government made necessary. All short term jobs.
• $253,123 for the North Carolina State University Insect Museum, which averages 44 visitors a year, to purchase new cabinets, drawers, specimen units, and to start an “Insect of the Week” series on its website
• $147,694 to study whether integral yoga can reduce the frequency/severity of hot flashes
• $296,385 for professors to find the exact place of origin of all dog species
• $187,632 to protect a Michigan insect collection from other insects
• $219,000 to study the "hook-up" behavior of female college students
• $8,408 to study whether mice become disoriented after consuming alcohol
• $325,394 to study mating behavior of cactus bugs
• $1,600,000 for a new housing dock for 6 water taxis
• $498,000 to study social networks like facebook
• $800,000 to retrofit light switches w/motion sensors for one company
• $1,288,883 to remove graffiti and replace a railing along 100 miles of flood ditches in California
• $75,000 for a private steak house to renovate its building
• $54 million to elevate and relocate 3,000 ft of track for the Napa Valley Wine Train
• $20,000 to replace a basketball court lighting with more energy efficient lighting
• $3.5 million to repaint and add a security camera to one bridge
• $5 million to a Missouri bridge project that was already fully funded
• $541,000 to a professor in Pennsylvania who was named in the climate-gate scandal
• $7,470,191 for a bridge over train tracks in Nebraska so 168 residents didn’t have to wait for the train to pass
• $787,250 to test how to control private home appliances off-site in Martha’s Vineyards
• $1,776,000 for 4 new buses in New Hampshire
• $88,000 to repave a 2-block stretch of road that was last repaved in 2007
• $2.3 million for Florida beauty school tuition
• $1.1 million to beautify Sunset Boulevard
• $212 million to demolish 35 old laboratories
• $13.8 million to put in free WiFi, Internet kiosks and interactive history lesions in 2 rest stops
• $80,000 for pedestrian "bridge to nowhere" in West Virginia that was meant to serve students. However, the school board president, Carol Smith, said, "It doesn't get any students out of the road."
• $4.4 million to replace all signs on 5 miles of road in Rhode Island
• $14.7 million to rebuild an airstrip in Ouzinkie, which has an estimated year-round population of 200 and is unknown to most Alaskans
• $23 million for bike and pedestrian paths connecting Camden, NJ and Philadelphia, PA even though the cities are already connected by a bridge
• $850,000 to research how paying attention improves performance of difficult tasks
• $2 million for a fire station in Nevada that doesn’t have any firefighters
• $25,000 for a “clown” theatrical production in Pennsylvania
• $50,000 to restructure tennis courts in Montana
• $221,355 to study why young men don’t like to wear condoms
• $15,000 for a storytelling festival in Utah
• $14,675 for door mats at the Department of the Army in Texas
• $159,170 towards services for individuals on probation in Southern California, like tattoo removal
• $1.57 to research fossils in Argentina
• $356,000 to Indiana University to study how kids perceive foreign accents
• $1.7 million to grow oysters 
• $340,000 for a rural bridge in Virginia that only serves about 20 cars a day
• $2.5 million for a "train-horn-free" zone in Oregon
• $250,000 to rehabilitate a dilapidated, private laundromat in Memphis, Tennessee
• $4.7 million for a trail connecting downtown Lexington, Kentucky with a horse farm
• $150,000 for road signs to be placed at construction sites in Illinois to inform motorists that the project was funded by the stimulus
• $21,116 to buy Bobber the Safety Dog costumes to teach kids about life vests
• $225,000 for a Shakespeare festival, which guaranteed only one extra show in 2010
• $233,825 for exit polling in Africa
• $578,661 to Union, New York to prevent homelessness when the city never requested funding. In fact, the town supervisor, John Bernando, said he wasn't aware of any homeless issue in the largely suburban town
• $5.6 million to resurface 6.4 miles of roads and bike paths in Nantucket, Massachusetts, which equates to about $875,00 per mile
• $25,000 to a renovate a private martini bar
• $31.3 million to Corinthian Colleges, a for-profit school under scrutiny for allegedly illegal recruitment strategies and hiring staff that were either unqualified to teach in their fields, or uninterested in teaching entirely.

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