Chairman Brion on the Coburn/McCain Report on Stimulus Waste

Greetings Committee:

I thought you might find the following information useful. Senators Coburn and McCain released a report yesterday detailing 100 wasteful stimulus projects. McCain and Coburn wrote in their report, “Eighteen months since the passage of the stimulus bill, millions of jobs are still gone and the economy is as uncertain as ever. The only thing getting a boost is our national debt. The stimulus has helped push it 23 percent higher, to $13.2 trillion, a new record.” Listed below are some examples of the mismanaged, to put it lightly, stimulus dollars allocated.

• $554,763 for the Forest Service to replace windows in a closed visitor center at Mount St. Helens
• $762,372 to create “Dance Draw” interactive dance software
• $62 million for a tunnel to nowhere in Pittsburgh, PA that even Governor, Ed Rendell called “a tragic mistake”
• $1.9 million for international ant research
• $1.8 million for a road project that is threatening a pastor’s home
• $308 million for a joint clean energy venture with…BP
• $89,298 to replace a new sidewalk that leads to a ditch in Boynton, OK
• $3.8 million for a “streetscaping” project that has reduced traffic and caused a business to fire two employees
• $16 million to help Boeing to clean up an environmental mess it created in 2007
• $200,000 to help Siberian communities lobby Russian policy makers
• $39.7 million to upgrade the statehouse and political offices in Topeka, Kansas
• $760,000 to Georgia Tech to study improvised music
• $700,000 to study why monkeys respond negatively to inequity
• $193,956 to study voter perceptions of the economic stimulus
• $363,760 to help NIH promote the positive impacts of stimulus projects
• $456,663 to study the circulation of Neptune’s atmosphere
• $529,648 to study the effects of local populations on the environment…in the Himalayas

Please let your constituents and volunteers know of this ridiculous use of our tax dollars. The report in its entirety can be viewed by clicking here. Now, more than ever, we need your help and the help of the volunteers in your areas to work hard for our candidates. The best use of our grassroots volunteers’ time is by joining us at Republican HQ, 15 South Church Street in West Chester, to make calls to ID Voters for November. Our phone banks are now open Monday through Thursday from 5:00pm to 8:00pm and on Saturdays from 10:00am to 4:00pm. Also, we are going Door to Door across the county. If you would like to go Door to Door in your area or join a group of people going out elsewhere in Chester County, please contact us at 610-696-1842 or e-mail Ashley Skidmore, Chester County Victory Director, at askidmore@pagop.org.

Your efforts and the support of our volunteers will lead us to victory on November 2nd. Thanks for all you do, and let me know if you have any questions or if I can be of any assistance.

On to victory,
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