The recently passed $26 state and public union bailout bill, which Pelosi called Congress back from recess to pass in an emergency session, sparked some deserved criticism on the House floor:

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Play the Real or Fake game, where you guess if a government program is real or fake:

These people were surprised by the answers. I give my readers more credit.

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Expecting politicians to direct taxpayer dollars in a manner that “stimulates” the economy is foolish.  Politicians will waste your money every time.

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The last time I covered the great work of Veronique de Rugy in analyzing the dispersal of stimulus funds, I mentioned that I would like to see the same data shown per capita to take account of district size.  She has delivered:

Several readers asked if the difference could be explained by the fact that Democratic districts have many more people than Republican districts have. So I looked at the numbers and here is the result. It’s not.

…Well I checked for the correlation between political indicators and stimulus funding. I found that there are no effect of political variables (leadership, tenure in office …) on stimulus funds allocation with one exception: the district’s party affiliation (whether the district’s representation was Republican or Democratic) does matter.

So how much does party affiliation mattered? While the effect is significant, because of the specifications of the model, more confidence should be placed on the relationship between the two variables then on the quantification of that relationship. In other words, while I am confident that whether the district is represented by R or D matters for funding, I just can’t tell you how much this factor matters compared to the other factors that went into the allocation decision.

On the other hand, I can tell you what factor was not a part of the allocation decision: the level of unemployment in each district or the deterioration of unemployment in each district. In other words, unemployment levels didn’t matter. That’s not what the money was supposed to address. Or was it?

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My latest post on Big Government reports on a recent study on stimulus spending, and ties its findings to the methods of Democratic hero FDR:

…Barack Obama has broken many campaign promises since taking office, but when it comes to the comparisons to Franklin Delano Roosevelt saddled on him by his adorning followers in the media, he has worked hard to live up to the hype.  We already knew that both dishonestly campaigned against the excessive spending of their predecessors before breaking the bank on their own watch.  Now we also know that President Obama, like FDR, has abused a crisis atmosphere to direct economic relief funds for partisan purposes…

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Barack Obama quickly retreated from his claim, made despite an admission that he was in the dark on the facts, that Cambridge police acted “stupidly” in arresting Professor Gates.  That hasn’t stopped a Cambridge police officer from saying she wouldn’t vote for Obama again.

But not to worry! Obama has a private slush fund to throw around whenever he pisses people off with his ham-handedness.  From the White House:

Vice President Joe Biden and Attorney General Eric Holder today announced $1 billion in grants to fund the hiring and rehiring of law enforcement officers all across the country under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009…

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Angry at Obama’s wasteful and fraudulent stimulus package? Feel like you might call up lawmakers to complain about it?  Sorry, you stupid peasant, that’s no longer allowed in Obamatopia.

In a blog posting Friday afternoon, White House ethics adviser Norm Eisen said the Obama Administration had decided to revise a rule which banned registered lobbyists from having any verbal contacts with federal officials about projects seeking stimulus monies. The original rule had drawn protests from lobbying and civil liberties groups who said it violated the First Amendment.

Under the new policy, the ban on oral communications about stimulus projects will apply from when an application is submitted until a grant is awarded, rather than at any time.

However, “all persons, not just federally registered lobbyists” are now prohibited from having conversations with federal officials about the projects during that time window.

War is Peace; Freedom is Slavery; Ignorance is Strength…and Silence is Free Speech.

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The union investment in Barack Obama continues to pay dividends:

The Obama administration is threatening to rescind billions of dollars in federal stimulus money if Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and state lawmakers do not restore wage cuts to unionized home healthcare workers approved in February as part of the budget.

Schwarzenegger’s office was advised this week by federal health officials that the wage reduction, which will save California $74 million, violates provisions of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Failure to revoke the scheduled wage cut before it takes effect July 1 could cost California $6.8 billion in stimulus money, according to state officials.

This kind of federal government bullying against the states was entirely predictable, and is why many governors said “thanks, but no thanks” to federal dollars.  Gov. Schwarzenegger was not one of them.  In fact, he stabbed these principled conservatives in the back when he defended the porkulus and joked that if they didn’t want the money, he would take it for them.

Who’s laughing now, Arnold?

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When Mark Sanford compared Obama’s stimulus package to Zimbabwe’s banana republic, grievance-monger and House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-victim) was up in arms, describing the comment as “beyond the pale.”  Why, he asked, did he pick Zimbabwe?

Now you know why, Mr. Clyburn:

The Federal Reserve yesterday escalated its massive campaign to stabilize the economy, saying it would flood the financial system with an additional $1.2 trillion.

The decision by the Fed to buy government bonds and mortgage-related securities is designed to lower borrowing costs for home mortgages and other types of loans, thereby stimulating economic activity. The central bank, effectively, will print more money to pay for the purchases.

Sound familiar?

Zimbabwe’s Leader Says He’ll Print More Cash

President Robert Mugabe has promised to print more money to fund municipal projects, a government newspaper reported Saturday. The pledge came despite hyperinflation that has created severe shortages of cornmeal, meat, milk and other staples.

So, how’s that working out for Zimbabwe?

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