Opinion: Social media wrap: John McCain goes from targeting pork to stimulus waste
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Arizona Sen. John McCain took time out from campaigning in his tight midterm race to tweet the results of his new endeavor to highlight “failed” stimulus projects.
Unveiled Tuesday, “Summertime Blues: 100 Stimulus Projects that Give Taxpayers the Blues” is McCain’s latest salvo against government spending in a career spent spotlighting egregious pork-barrel projects.
Remember Alaska’s famous “bridge to nowhere”? McCain and partner, Oklahoma’s Tom Coburn, point out that a similar “tunnel to nowhere” in Pittsburgh was granted an additional $62 million to continue its construction. There are also ant-farms, dance programs and a $308-million joint energy venture with BP. Ahem.
Here is McCain’s top tweet rundown of the stimulus projects.
#1. $554,763 to replace windows at the Coldwater Ridge Visitor Center at Mount St. Helens that was closed in 2007
#2. $760,000 to Georgia Tech to study improvised music
...
#3. $762,372 for interactive dance software development called ‘Dance Draw’
#4. $62 million for continued construction of the North Shore Connector in Pittsburgh, aka “tunnel to nowhere” – even Gov Rendell opposes it
#5. $1.2 million to convert an abandoned train station that was closed in 1971 into a museum
#6. $1.9 million to collect, photograph and study different species of ants in east Africa and the Southwest Indian Ocean islands
#7. $59,845 for a comparative study of the rise of colonial lawsuits in the Spanish Empire
#8. $529,648 to study the effect of local populations on the environment in the Himalayas
#9. $357,710 to repair stonework on a 140-year-old abandoned iron furnace in Kentucky
#10. $89,298 for a town in OK to replace a new sidewalk with a newer sidewalk that leads to a ditch
McCain spotlights a few more “failed” projects on his website (you can read McCain’s list of stimulus projects here.)
McCain’s further examples include:
- $308 million for a joint clean energy venture with…BP
- $89,298 to replace a new sidewalk that leads to a ditch in Boynton, OK
- $200,000 to help Siberian communities lobby Russian policy makers
- $700,000 to study why monkeys respond negatively to inequity
- $193,956 to study voter perceptions of the economic stimulus
- $363,760 to help NIH promote the positive impacts of stimulus projects
- $456,663 to study the circulation of Neptune’s atmosphere
Back in 2008, McCain skipped a Senate vote on the stimulus package while campaigning to be president.
-- Craig Howie
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