June 5, 2009

The stimulus tour surprise

I finally get how the stimulus package is meant to work, and I have to admit I'm quite surprised by it.

Politico is reporting that Team Obama has travelled to 66 events to promote the stimulus package and it's wondrous and amazing brilliance at saving 72 million jobs (hey, there's no way of measuring how many jobs were saved, it's an asinine argument, so why not go with an asinine and outlandish number?).
No surprise.
They're out there on the taxpayers' dime trying to promote the amazing job they've done so far, even though it's too early to see any of those effects. Even though unemployment has risen to the worst levels since 1983. Even though any recovery that's happened since the apparent bottom this year are either illusory or else happening pre-stimulus impact. Never let a good news story go to waste either, right Rahm Emanuel? Party on Wayne! Party on Garth!
No surprise that they want to take credit for the stock market rally, even if the layoffs are worsening. (After all, the link above has Yahoo painting it as things getting better with 'but job losses slow' in the headline).

The Team has travelled predominantly to states that Obama won in 2008;

But the numbers tell the tale: 52 of the 66 events were in states that backed Obama. And taken together, the itineraries amount to a veritable map of Obama’s election-night victories — big-money states like California and New York, swing states like Ohio and Colorado that Obama turned blue and other solidly Democratic states Obama kept in his column.

The events were weighted to big cities that provided Obama some of his biggest election-night margins: Cleveland, Boston, Detroit, Los Angeles, Chicago and Philadelphia.

Of the other 14 events, Vice President Joe Biden and Cabinet officials often touched
down in places where Obama lost narrowly and that Democrats hope to pull into their column by 2012, such as Missouri, Arizona, Montana and North Dakota.

Only two Southern states were visited by Cabinet officials for stimulus-related trips: Georgia and Kentucky, according to information provided by the White House and an examination of news releases from all 21 Cabinet-level agencies.

Again, no surprise. Politics as usual.

The Team denied the location of the trips were political;

And the White House sharply denied that there was any political motivation to the travel. “Politics plays no role in implementation of the Recovery Act or highlighting its successes. Period,” said Liz Oxhorn, press secretary for the Recovery Act.
Yep, again no surprise.

But then it hit me. They've toured and toured but the stimulus money has barely begun to trickle out the door. Sure enough, Politico confirmed my surprise;

Still, the stimulus bill has the potential to be a publicity bonanza for the Obama administration for years to come — through the 2010 midterm elections and beyond. As of mid-May, the administration had spent only 6 percent of the money Congress allotted for the program, and the White House says officials will continue to travel the country until all of the money is spent.
[Emphasis added.]

6%? Really? Anyhow, what's the surprise? It seems like their plan to spend the stimulus money is just to tour the country until all the money is used up - apparently to be used up by the tour itself. That should be good for a dozen years. They're going to have to ramp up the trips, the Obama date nights and Hollywood galas to get all that money spent any sooner.

It will be like a Motley Crue tour by the end of it with debauchery and an out of control party atmosphere, but with the added bonus of Biden gaffes. It'll be a real hoot...

[NOTE: For those of you who don't understand parody or sarcasm, please disregard the entire above post. Clearly the stimulus money is not to be used for an Obama party tour. It's being used to pay off liberal sycophants and cronies. We all get that.]

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