So what do you get for $787,000,000,000?

Not much. The Wall Street Journal put together a nice chart of the spending allocations for the Porkulus Bill. The Journal is about the only national paper that you can get news from that doesn’t have reporters screaming and fainting like teen girls at a Jonas Brothers concert over Obama. This chart does not drill down to the 9000 earmarked pet projects, this is just the “big picture”. The picture it paints is hardly what a rational person would expect to find in a bill that was foisted on us as being our only hope to stave off catastrophe. Here is a sample…

Salaries for staff to modernize IT system at Farm Service Agency: $50,000,000

Adult and child day care meals and snacks: $100,000,000

Extra money for Census: $1,000,000,000

National Cemetery renovations and repairs: $50,000,000

The internet is a big winner in the Porkulus Bill (which is only right since Al Gore invented it and he should have been President anyway because he should have won Florida even though none of the counts showed him getting more actual votes than George Bush) . In a time of economic crisis, nothing is more important than people being able to get high speed internet. How can we have a functioning economy without YouTube clips and illegally downloaded music!

Salaries and expenses for program to create broadband inventory map of the country: $350,000,000 (that is an expensive map!)

Grants to provide wireless and broadband infrastructure to communities, including public computer centers and sustainable adoption of broadband service: $4,350,000,000

Broadband grants to rural communities (farmers need YouTube too!): $2,500,000,000

Absolutely vital , each and ever line item. Think how catastrophic it would be if the Farm Service Agency didn’t get updated computers. Oh the humanity! Snacks for elderly daycare, yummy! Renovations to the National Cemetery. On and on and on. No wonder they crammed this thing through before people got a good look at it. How can we live without $85,000,000 for “Indian Health Services IT development and deployment” or $50,000,000 for “Grants to fund arts projects in non-profit sector”?

The best part is the money going back to states. So on our behalf, the Federal government is going to take almost $800,000,000,000 from us in taxes and debt. Then they are going to filter that through Washington, D.C. Then they are going to send a huge chunk of it to Governor Jennifer Granholm, paragon of fiscal responsibility and sound government (who else can brag that even though the whole nation is in a recession, Michigan has been in a deeper and worse recession than any other state. We’re number 1!). Once Jenny gets done tinkering around with our money, she and the state legislature are then going to dole it out to pet projects all around the state. Meanwhile, the average Michigander still won’t be able to sell their house, find a new job or send their kids to a decent school.

Remember that when this was passed, it was designed to head of economic collapse and food riots in the streets. Some of this spending is useful, some of it may be vital. But don’t sell us a bill that is designed to head of imminent collapse and then hide a bunch of random spending in it and still tell us it is a “stimulus” bill. It is nothing but a massive expansion of the Federal government and did nothing to fix the major issues that are crippling the economy, i.e. a train wreck in the consumer and business credit markets.

This is pork barrel spending on an unprecedented level, and it was sold to America by scare-mongering in D.C. with the willing participation and encouragement of the mainstream media. All that is left now is for the American people to pay back the $800,000,000,000 bill.