Taken from the government website www.recovery.gov

Monday, August 27, 2012

Acalanes Union High School District $3,538,849

For "support of education", grades K-12, plus preschool education services.

That means 3 and a half million for salaries and pensions.

I just love it when Obama saves government jobs.

Sunday, August 26, 2012

ABC School District: $16,988,499

Located in Cerritos, which sits near the border of L.A. and Orange Counties, ABC Unified School District received almost 17 million in Stimulus bucks, despite the fact that California spends nearly half its 40 billion dollar general fund on education.

The majority of the money went to "supporting education", which means Administrators', teachers', and employee salaries and pensions.

80,000.00 went to "improving technology access" and communications (a.k.a. wiring schools for the internet... wait, I thought the Gore Tax on our cell phone bills was for that, what gives here?).

Almost 95 grand went to the Free Lunch Program.

This is all money YOU will pay back at 2 bucks for every buck borrowed, and most of it went to fund teachers that you or your kids will never meet.

The Government through its stupidity caused the Housing Crash of 2007. Schools are funded through property taxes, which are in decline. Well-paid government employees will not suffer, however, even as your home value slides into the gutter and you have to borrow from your pension to make ends meet.

Thanks, Teachers' Unions. We appreciate that.

Saturday, August 25, 2012

ACCURATE ENGINEERING INTEGRATED CONSTRUCTION SERVICES, INC. $1,900,043

Accurate Engineering was contracted to build a solar panel installation at the Navy base in Coronado. The expected base output of the system would be at or near 200 kilowatts.

Unfortunately, the entire photovoltaic generation system could be replaced with a single wind turbine for half the cost of the solar system.

A petroleum powered generator capable of putting out 200 kilowatts costs about $50,000.00.

Yet the Environmental Left is madly in love with solar power, even though it's the most expensive per kilowatt. So what if we throw away borrowed taxpayers dollars? We're saving the earth, remember?


Friday, August 24, 2012

A-Ccord, Inc: $1,983,870

A-Ccord is a private company that specializes in training and retraining Utility workers (mainly in the electrical and natural gas utility fields). This particular award of Stimulus bucks is for upgrading the skill set of existing utility workers and possible new hires in "green" energy and conservation.

The grant is for up to 719 trainees, which places the cost at 2700 per pupil. There is no guarantee that this money will create OR save a single job.

What's particularly offensive about this is that the funding for these very specialized schools are lobbied for by Unions, namely, the Utility Workers AFL-CIO. They are applying for millions of dollars in grants all over the U.S. for training programs just like this one.

http://uwua.net/press-releases-2010/us-department-of-labor-awards-uwua-5-million-for-training-programs.html

Why is it that the AFL-CIO has millions to spend on lobbying in Washington, millions for buying TV ads against political opponents, but can't squeeze out one thin dime to fund training for their own members?

The sad fact is, most of this training isn't even for new applicants. It's for current employees to supposedly improve their skill sets.

Most people have to fund their own secondary or continuing education. Union labor considers itself exempt from the status quo.

So now, the unions will not only sock it to you through rising energy prices to support their gilded pensions and benefits packages, but they get to dip into the government trough to support their training, too!

Ain't unions just wonderful?

Thursday, August 23, 2012

Golden Gate Associates, L.P. $54,305902.00

http://www.recovery.gov/Transparency/RecoveryData/Pages/RecipientProjectSummary508.aspx?AwardIdSur=22193

http://www.recovery.gov/Transparency/RecoveryData/Pages/RecipientProjectSummary508.aspx?AwardIdSur=88421

Golden Gate Associates has been awarded over $324,000,000.00 for low-cost housing projects all over California. Homeowners willing to rent their units to Section 8 recipients can get their properties renovated and repaired, plus receive additional kickbacks from the government (YOU) to compensate for the shortage that Section 8 rent payments cause in relation to market rates or home values.

Basically, the government pays the homeowner more than they collect from the tenant in order to get a property owner to make their unit available.

In other words, if you're familiar with that classic movie, "It's A Wonderful Life", this is government subsidized Potterville.

This probably helps explain the run on reposessed houses being purchased for cash at way below market value. The government will then fix the place, and pay you a nice monthly check. Such a deal. And WE get to foot the bill now with Stimulus funds, paid back with interest.

However, this award does create some contruction and admin jobs, approximately 486 over the last several years. I would imagine most of the jobs are temporary.

Golden Gate Associates was also awarded a project to convert a San Diego YMCA to a 172 room housing unit for the "chronically homeless". That means a hotel for alcoholics and drug addicts. This, I assume, is to free up space in the existing facility for the chronically homeless, commonly referred to as "jail".

Wednesday, August 22, 2012

The 'X-Prize Foundation': $5,500,000.00

http://www.recovery.gov/Transparency/RecoveryData/Pages/RecipientProjectSummary508.aspx?AwardIdSur=19602

The X-Prize, a competition that will award a prize to the student group that designs a new fuel efficient automobile. The competion will furnish teams of experts to judge the entries, and even provide an online interactive experience for users as each entry is being run through its paces.

Basically, the government is giving away 5 million of your bucks to entice college students to design the next Smart Car. This is supposed to help stimulate the economy and create jobs.

According to the Award Overview, it created 2.

Introduction To This Blog

In 2009, President Barack Obama quickly pushed through Congress, and then signed, the Recovery Act (a.k.a. Stimulus II) in attempt to kick-start a basically anemic United States economy, save or create jobs, and generate some economic activity in a positive direction.

Congress approved over three quarters of a trillion dollars (4787,000,000,000.00), to be distributed to the States as they applied for the funds. My state, California, received almost 34 billion dollars from the Recovery Act.

http://www.recovery.gov/Transparency/RecoveryData/Pages/RecipientReportedDataMap.aspx?stateCode=CA

The funds were distributed for the benefit of government. The biggest share went to education, the lions' share of which goes straight to salaries and pensions. The next biggest share went infrastructure projects like transportation, building, and public housing. A significant portion went to Research and Developement grants and "green energy" projects. Another slice went to social services.

As time progresses, I will call your attention to what the government considers to be a good use of your money, even when it will have to be paid back at twice the principal borrowed. I will be focusing on those awards that are at least $1,000,000.00, or multiple grants to certain companies that total 1,000,000 or more, or what could be considered the more outrageous grants that were awarded.

The idea is to show taxpayers like you and me just how much waste your representatives sponsor to justify their jobs. You'd better sit down, and prepare for your jaw to hit the floor when you see what YOUR money is being used for, starting with the very first entry I'll be posting.

Hopefully, this will stimulate your brain juices, and perhaps together we all can put a stop to the expansion of wasteful government.