Obamanomics

Here in the City of Saginaw, $19 million in stimulus funds are being spent on cleaning up blighted neighborhoods by leveling houses and rehabbing others.  So far taxpayer funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act have rehabbed a dozen homes, raised and additional 250, and acquired a couple of hundred more.  Sounds terrific doesn't it?  What's even more terrific is the price that some lucky buyer gets to pay for one of these rehabs.  $130,000 in stimulus money was used to rehab one particular house and was flipped for $34,900!  Another was...wait, what?  Yes, that's right.  Most of these homes are being fixed up at a cost that is four to five times more than what they will fetch on the open market.  Still sound terrific?

In 2009, $3.2 million in stimulus funds was provided to Arlington, VA for energy grants.  According to the Wall Street Journal, nearly $300,000 was used to install solar panels on a local library.  By doing so city officials hope to save $14,000 annually on their electric bill.  Unfortunately the fancy solar panels only last 10 to 15 years, so the $300,000 that was spent will only net a total savings of $150,000.  Speaking of solar power what's happened to all those "green" jobs that were promised?  In just the past two weeks Evergreen Solar and Solyndra, both prime examples of Obama's green jobs initiative and subsidized taxpayer investments, have gone belly-up throwing thousands out of work and losing  hundreds of millions in credits and loans.

Joseph Goebbels, Adolph Hitler's Propaganda Minister, is often attributed (in error perhaps) as saying "A lie repeated often enough will become truth."  No matter how many times the Obama administration, the media, Democrats, progressives, liberals, what have you, tell us how necessary and wise their "investments" are, they simply cannot be trusted nor believed.  The government cannot replace the free market without great harm to both freedom and commerce.  Two plus two will never equal five!