Sen. Cornyn Statement On Stimulus Report Revealing 100 Wasteful, Jobless Projects

Statement

U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, today released the following statement regarding a report issued by Sens. John McCain and Tom Coburn outlining 100 wasteful stimulus-funded projects that fail to create jobs. The full report can be accessed here.

"As summer barbecues pop up in backyards across the country, another kind of pork is making its way to a gratuitous study or project near you. This new report reveals 100 stimulus-funded pet projects that have failed to create jobs for Americans. Instead we discover taxpayer money will provide iPod Touch devices to high school students in Utah, Blackberry smart phones to smokers who kick the habit, and funding for a study of exotic ants in East Africa.

"The President sold his $862 billion stimulus plan as a necessary vehicle to immediately boost the economy and create jobs. He promised it would keep unemployment at or below 8 percent, but today a different reality exists as 3.3 million private sector jobs have been lost since the stimulus passed and unemployment hovers at 9.5 percent.

"As millions of Americans look for work, how can this Administration look at them with a straight face and tell them the stimulus is a success--that it hasn't added over $1 trillion to the national debt? How can they continue to promote a failed, taxpayer-funded stimulus that foots the bill for research on cocaine's effect on monkeys, while the jobs it was supposed to create continue to fall by the wayside?"

Sampling of wasteful projects:

* Despite closing a visitor center at Mount St. Helens in Washington state, the U.S. Forest Service is spending more than $554,000 to replace its windows.
* The University of North Carolina at Charlotte received more than $750,000 in stimulus funds to help develop a "Dance Tube" computer program modeled after YouTube.
* The California Academy of Sciences is receiving nearly $2 million to send researchers to the Southwest Indian Ocean Islands and east Africa, to capture, photograph, and analyze thousands of exotic ants.
* A Georgia Tech assistant professor of music will receive $762,372 to study improvised music.
* Researchers at Georgia State University are using almost $700,000 in stimulus funds to study why monkeys respond negatively to inequity and unfairness.
* The American Legacy Foundation is slated to receive almost half a million dollars to provide quitting smokers with a smart phone so they can contact their quitting support groups by text message or phone call to prevent relapses.
* The Department of Health and Human Services has sent $71,623 to Wake Forest University to see how monkeys react under the influence of cocaine.
* A former director of community affairs for the City of Monroe, Louisiana, who was convicted twice for taking financial kickbacks from contractors, has received $211,468243 in stimulus funds to build a sidewalk.
* About 1,600 students at Kearns High School in Utah will get iPod touches next school year, thanks to a federal stimulus Enhancing Education Through Technology grant in the amount of $1 million.

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