Just the facts - 2 years of the Failed Stimulus Program cost more than the entire Iraq War

Facts are funny things as you can't debate facts.

You can debate philosophies, political points-of-view and such but the facts stand.

For all the whining/wailing/complaining from the lefty loonies about the cost of the Iraq war, the DEM controlled Congress managed to spend more $$$ on the failed stimulus program in 2009-2010 exceeding the cost of the entire 8 years of the Iraqi war. While the funding for the war was high, to exceed that amount in a 2 year period and have nothing to show for it but continued 9+% unemployment shows the facts show that Obama and his lefty co-horts spent an incredible amount of money and gained no results. The prior administration spent a significant amount of money and we gained a free Iraq, more stability and a true change in the Middle East.

Facts. Not hyperbole or opinion. Just the facts.

CBO: Eight Years of Iraq War Cost Less Than Stimulus Act
Fox News Analysis

As President Obama prepares to tie a bow on U.S. combat operations in Iraq, Congressional Budget Office numbers show that the total cost of the eight-year war was less than the stimulus bill passed by the Democratic-led Congress in 2009.

According to CBO numbers in its Budget and Economic Outlook published this month, the cost of Operation Iraqi Freedom was $709 billion for military and related activities, including training of Iraqi forces and diplomatic operations.

The projected cost of the stimulus, which passed in February 2009, and is expected to have a shelf life of two years, was $862 billion.

The U.S. deficit for fiscal year 2010 is expected to be $1.3 trillion, according to CBO. That compares to a 2007 deficit of $160.7 billion and a 2008 deficit of $458.6 billion, according to data provided by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget.

In 2007 and 2008, the deficit as a percentage of gross domestic product was 1.2 percent and 3.2 percent, respectively.

"Relative to the size of the economy, this year's deficit is expected to be the second largest shortfall in the past 65 years; 9.1 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), exceeded only by last year's deficit of 9.9 percent of GDP," CBO wrote.

The CBO figures show that the most expensive year of the Iraq war was in 2008, the year when the surge proposed by Gen. David Petraeus and approved by President Bush was in full swing and the turning point in the war. The total cost of Iraq operations in 2008 was $140 billion. In 2007, the cost of Iraq operations was $124 billion.

According to an analysis by the American Thinker's Randall Hoven, the cost of the Iraq war from 2003-2008 -- when Bush was in office -- was $20 billion less than the cost of education spending and less than a quarter of the cost of Medicare spending during that same period.

The so called " Jobs Plan" from the White House

The President previously spent $900 Billion in Stimulus money to help the economy and it didn't produce any real results, so explain to me how spending on a "jobs plan" the White House estimates at $447 billion will be any different ???

The new plan calls for construction jobs, teachers, police, etc to get more $$$ which all went for naught last time, so how will this not be a stupendous failure like last time??

This is more of the same from the White House and not an answer to how regular Americans will see "real jobs" as we progress forward....

Shame on those who believe that the "Jobs Plan" will make a single bit of difference in the economy other than deepening the debt we find ourselves in. To help Americans, we need real jobs, not ones ginned up in an effort to get the President re-elected, something he DOES NOT deserve as he has been an utter failure, as predicted. He was the wrong person for the job then, and he is the wrong person for the job now.

The only thing the "Jobs Plan" from the President is trying to create is a 2nd term for himself.

" It was a recipe for waste, a scatter-gun approach that raised many public expectations, but in the end provided few achievements and fewer yet jobs"

Guess the idjit-in-charge and his administration full of fools got it wrong again......The CBO now estimates the cost of the Stimulus Plan was *more* than the OBOTS had previously estimated...

Wow....a real shocker eh?? And does it matter to them? No, after all, he & the rest of his ilk will be on the Federal Dole for life....while we (you,me, our children and their children, etc.) will be paying the bill for this foolishness for the rest of our combined lifetimes.....Talk about " Highway Robbery " ...You can't spend yourself out of a hole but these fools have wasted our National Treasure to line the pockets of their political allies and only succeeded in digging the hole deeper.

CBO raises its stimulus cost estimate, again
By Stephen Dinan

The Washington Times
8:02 p.m., Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Congress‘ chief scorekeeper has again raised the cost estimate of President Obama‘s two-year-old economic-stimulus program, calculating it will end up costing taxpayers $821 billion — or $34 billion more than originally projected.

And the economic boost from the added government spending is beginning to wear off, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said in a new report Wednesday. The CBO said that in the final three months of 2010, the stimulus was paying to keep between 1.3 million and 3.5 million people in jobs, both down from the peak recorded in the prior three-month period.

The drop was expected, since the biggest chunk of stimulus money was spent out during fiscal year 2010, which ended Sept. 30.

Mr. Obama‘s stimulus program turned two years old last week, but it remains a thorny political issue.

House Republicans sought to cancel several billion dollars in unspent stimulus money as part of the $61 billion in spending cuts they passed Saturday, and Republicans on both sides of the Capitol have introduced legislation to try to reclaim other money or audit what was actually spent.

“The Department of Energy alone had $39 billion in stimulus money — all, I might say, borrowed — $9 billion more than its entire budget. It was a recipe for waste, a scatter-gun approach that raised many public expectations, but in the end provided few achievements and fewer yet jobs,” said Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen, New Jersey Republican, in the debate last week.

But Democrats said the remaining stimulus funds should be spent.

“There are people who are now at their 99th level of not being able to get employed and get unemployment insurance. They need these jobs,” said Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, Texas Democrat, during the floor debate.

Estimates for the actual cost of the stimulus have changed dramatically, rising from the initial $787 billion price tag to reach $862 billion, then falling to $814 billion and now ticking back up to $821 billion.

The increased overall 10-year cost of the stimulus comes mostly from higher Medicaid spending in 2010 and a higher payout of refundable tax credits in 2011, CBO analysts said.

© Copyright 2011 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.

Stimulus Spending Wasteful...no kidding.

And the " Captain Obvious" award goes to the media for reporting on something the average taxpayer had figured out long ago.... Sen. McCain has been valiantly trying to rein in the Pork Barrel spending for the past 20 years.....

Anyone could have told you that the Stimulus Plan was a huge waste of tax dollars that we will be paying for for the rest of our lives....Too bad the Congress and POTUS don't have a clue.

Stimulus Slammed: Republican Senators Release Report Alleging Waste
Sens. Coburn, McCain Rip Stimulus Spending 'Waste'
By JONATHAN KARL, MATTHEW JAFFE and GREGORY SIMMONS
Aug. 3, 2010

The Obama administration has credited its $862 billion stimulus program with pulling the economy out of the worst recession since the Great Depression. But a new report by two Republican senators argues the stimulus is riddled with wasteful projects that do not create jobs.

The report, released by Sens. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., and John McCain, R-Ariz., highlights 100 stimulus projects that they say have "questionable goals," are "being mismanaged or were poorly planned" and are even "costing jobs and hurting small businesses."

The Coburn-McCain report takes issue with stimulus spending on projects like one that entailed research on how cocaine affects monkeys. The Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center was awarded $71,623 to study what the report calls, "Monkeys Getting High for Science."

Bonnie Davis, a spokeswoman for The Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center, said the "small grant has helped protect very important research that will have significant impact on public health in regards to cocaine addiction and the issue of relapse."

Go a little further down the list and you'll find even bigger spending. The California Academy of Sciences is receiving nearly $1 million in stimulus funds to send researchers to the Southwest Indian Ocean Islands and East Africa to capture, photograph and analyze thousands of exotic ants.

There's also funding for yoga and hot flashes. Researchers at Wake Forest University have received nearly $300,000 to study whether integral yoga "can be an effective method to reduce the frequency and/or severity of hot flashes" in breast cancer survivors.

"I think all of them are waste," McCain told ABC News. "I think none of them really have any meaningful impact on creating jobs. And, of course, some are more egregious than others but all of them are terrible."

In perhaps the most eye-popping instance, the report says oil giant BP, the company behind the worst oil spill in the nation's history, is benefiting from $308 million given to Hydrogen Energy California -- a company it owns -- to build a California power plant that won't even break ground for another two years.

The funds were given to BP by the Department of Energy. While the natural gas electricity plant in Kern County would generate enough low-carbon electricity for 150,000 family homes, according to the company, construction will not start for another two years and the plant is not set to become operational until the end of 2014.

"It's nice to have BP investing in environmentally friendly anything, much less a power plant," McCain quipped.

The White House Recovery Office maintains Recovery Act funding for the project was offered in June 2009 and officially awarded in September 2009, long before the Gulf spill, and that the award went to a joint venture that is a 50/50 cost-share between Rio Tinto and BP -- so BP is not the primary awardee.

In addition, it turns out the $308 million awarded is only made up of $175 million in stimulus funds, with the remaining portion coming from other sources. In fact, the private sector has given the project seven times as much funding as the government has.

"The project directly and indirectly employs more than 150 people to date and $14 million stimulus funds received to date has created or preserved 47 of these jobs, as reported on recovery.gov," Jordan Feilders of Hydrogen Energy California told ABC News.

The project is projected eventually to create more than 1,500 jobs.

According to Feilders, however, construction is not slated to begin until 2012, a year later than the Coburn-McCain report indicated.


Another eyebrow-raising endeavor involves the U.S. Forest Service in Washington state, which is spending more than half a million dollars to replace the windows on a visitor center at Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument that today sits closed with no set re-open date.

The U.S. Forest Service frames the window replacement as a necessary investment.

"The Forest Service is actually in the process of repurposing the visitors' center and plans to reuse the empty space," a U.S. Forest official told ABC News. "This window replacement is necessary to maintain the facility so they are in a position to do so. It's a critical step to protect the original investment and ensure continued good use of taxpayer dollars."

The list goes on, although some of the administrators and recipients of stimulus funds say the report doesn't get all the facts straight.

In Newark, Ohio, Pastor Greg Sheets already has lost his front yard and could lose his entire home as a $1.8 million road project comes right up to his doorstep. Sheets is only one of 25 homeowners whose houses are threatened by the project.

However, the Ohio Department of Transportation told ABC News that plans for the project began in 2005, well before the stimulus bill was even conceived of. The ODT also maintains the acquisition of the property is being handled by the City of Newark's city attorney, who has followed all state and federal procedures for purchasing the property.

Meanwhile, the town of Boynton, Okla., is spending nearly $90,000 to replace a quarter-mile stretch of sidewalk that's only five years old.

However, officials in the Oklahoma Department of Transportation say the $90,000 was a part of a $16 million grant from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and was focused on sidewalks for a reason: Sidewalks have to be compliant with the American Disabilities Act as a mandatory precursor to receiving any funding from the Federal Highway Administration. This particular sidewalk in Boyton was too narrow and too sloped to accommodate individuals in wheelchairs.

"It's a major help because now small communities, like Boynton, can receive federal funding for their roads," Casey Shell of the Oklahoma Department of Transportation told ABC News.

However, to Sens. McCain and Coburn's point, Shell admitted he could not point to any jobs created by the project.

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