Remember the 2009 $5 billion home weatherproofing stimulus package designed to help jump-start the economy during the recession? Probably not. But you should. We ALL should. This boondoggle was a textbook case demonstrating two things: 1. Stimulus bills are not shovel ready, despite the reassurances of our all-knowing, uber-honest Commander in Chief. By the time they start having a stimulating effect (a dubious proposition in itself), the recession is usually over. Our recession officially ended in mid-2009 -- before this giveaway had any significant effect. In this instance, Obama and DC managed to turn a temporary recession into a state of being -- making stimulus packages as useful (or useless) as originally (centrally) planned. 2. The inefficiencies of government implementation are at best wasteful and more often can be mindblowing. In addition to the widespread fraud and crony contracting, the results were both expensive and minuscule. For instance, the projection was that in 2009, 2,500 low income houses would be weatherproofed in California. End of year tally -- TWELVE homes. The short article below details the madness of implementing the cost-inflating Davis-Bacon Act. No weatherproofer job category existed, so bureaucrats spent a small fortune (and delayed implementation) figuring out the mandatory wage rate for the THOUSANDS of counties in the U.S. -- each county had to be calculated differently, depending on local (union) wage levels.
Posted on: Wed, 26 Mar 2014 15:42:38 +0000
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