A Look At Obama’s Pork-Riddled Economic Stimulus Bill

A few days ago I posted about the city of Grand Forks already earmarking their portion of Obama’s “economic stimulus” behemoth noting that they want to spend it on CFL light bulbs and homeless shelters. As it turns out, Grand Forks’ request was just part of a national effort by the nation’s mayors to get some tasty, tasty pork from Obama.
All together, the mayors have requested $73 billion in pork for things like fitness centers and tennis facilities.
Oh and halls of fame. Yes. That’s plural.

By all accounts, the $73 billion wish list may be the largest collection of parochial spending projects in American history. Strolling through the 800 pages, we found such beauties as: $1 million to upgrade the Los Angeles County Convention Center elevated “catwalk” for cameras and lighting; $350,000 for an Albuquerque, N.M., fitness center; $94 million for a parking garage at the Orange Bowl in Miami; $4.5 million for Gretna, Florida, to bottle water with recyclable bottles; a $35 million music hall of fame in Florissant, Missouri, and $3.1 million for a swimming pool in Tulsa.
Oh, and desperate Santa Barbara, Calif., respectfully requests $80,000 for a tennis facility; Savannah, Georgia, would like to build a children’s museum; Ventura, Calif., wants $6 million to renovate the beach at Surfers Point, and Durham, N.C., home of the Durham Bulls, wants to construct the first Minor League Baseball Hall of Fame. Dayton, Ohio, wants $1.5 million to reduce prostitution with education programs, and Ponce, Puerto Rico wants $5.7 million to improve its cruise ship terminal (which will create all of 60 jobs).

Are we really supposed to believe that the path to economic recovery in America lays with pork spending? If that’s true, we should have kept Senator Ted Stevens in office. If government spending on earmarks are what’s going to stimulate this economy why not let Stevens build 1,000 bridges to nowhere and then sit back and enjoy the prosperity?
Heck, why not raise taxes so that we can build more tennis facilities and fitness centers and halls of fame. Sure it’ll make our paychecks smaller. Sure it’ll increase the burden on the businesses that actually employ us. But who cares?
As long as we get those tennis facilities, everything’s gonna be alright.