Quote of the Week

Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.

Ronald Reagan

Just How Much Did That "Stimulus Job" Cost?

I had been hearing from different sources how much the so-called stimulus jobs were costing you and I - you know, the poor saps that pay the bills. Having checked the multi-million dollar government site recently to satisfy my curiosity as to what $8 million has bought us, I decided it was a good opportunity to put it to use for my own research. Here, according to the 'recovery.gov' site, is the list of the top ten “stimulus” spending projects by dollar amount and the amount each of those jobs created has cost us.



1) Savannah River Nuclear Solutions, LLC (SC) – $1,407,839,884 awarded – $225,872,246 invoiced/received – 800 jobs created – $282,340 per job
2) CH2M Hill Plateau Remediation Company (WA) – $1,359,715,229 – $142,167,945 invoiced – 621 jobs – $228,934 per job
3) CH2M WG Idaho LLC (ID) – $437,675,000 – $66,401,236 invoiced – 496 jobs – $133,873 per job
4) UT-Battelle, LLC (TN) – $338,697,231 – $12,909,144 invoiced – 41 jobs – $314,857 per job
5) SAIC-Frederick, Inc. (MD) – $302,521,207 – project not commenced
6) Washington River Protection Solutions LLC (WA) – $299,728,838 – 200 jobs – $28,092,695 invoiced – $140,463 per job
7) Babcock & Wilcox Technical Services Y-12, LLC (TN) – $270,299,243 – 129 jobs – $18,107,076 invoiced – $140,364 per job
8) Brookhaven Science Associates, LLC (NY) – $257,613,800 – 25 jobs – $29,528,879 invoiced – $1,181,155 per job
9) Washington Closure Hanford, LLC (WA) – $253,614,000 – 36 jobs – $16,474,802 invoiced – $457,633 per job
10) Los Alamos National Security, LLC (NM) – $230,835,000 – 66 jobs – $7,646,242 invoiced – $115,852 per job


That would be a total of $5.16 billion committed and $547 million spent, for a total of 2,414 jobs. Now, I do not know how many, if any, of those jobs are real and how many are fictional but my math tells me that each one of those jobs cost us roughly $226,700 (I could have said $2.1 million per job based on the full committment but I will give them the benefit of the doubt and assume the recipients will be creating more jobs, proportional to the balance of the funds they will be recieving). Another point to ponder is the types of jobs created. I looked in to each recipient and discovered that there are blue collar as well as engineering type jobs that are being reported as being 'created or saved'. Some of these jobs exceed a million dollars (see number 8 above) in cost. That is some salary for a job that will go away when the funding is not renewed.

But don’t worry. These idiots will totally make your health care more efficient as they claim.

U.S. National Debt Clock : Real Time

U.S. National Debt Clock : Real Time

Quote of the Week

A government big enough to give you everything you want, is big enough to take away everything you have.

Thomas Jefferson

White House - FNC Media War Heats Up

The Obama Administration is proving to be the most Nixonian one since that ill-fated administration. During their first nine months, the WH has managed to create the most polarized media as well as electorate in modern U.S. politics, in great part due to their tactics and unparalleled inability to deal with criticism. The war on Fox News is just one of many the administration has declared including Chrysler bond holders, doctors, health insurance companies, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and conservative pundits among others who are perceived as road blocks to the administration's agenda. The vindictive and petty nature of this self declared war on Fox is clearly hurting the administration by making it look un-presidential, while benefiting Fox by driving its ratings up. The latest battle in this curious war came last Thursday when the administration offered the pay czar to the WH press corps for an interview with the stipulation that Fox would be excluded. Surprisingly, all the other major networks declined the offer if Fox would be excluded - the first sign of integrity main stream media has shown in recent months!

Most observers of this 'war' are frankly puzzled about what the administration hopes to get out of it, even on the political left. Why would an administration that came to power with promises of post-partisanship react so strongly to a news outlet that is critical of it despite the serious political risks such a move brings? The answer may elude most observers who cannot make the connection between the key administration players and the significance of their backgrounds. Consider the following:

The 'Chicago Way': The modus operandi of all the key power brokers in the WH - President Obama, David Axelrod, Rahm Emanuel, and Valerie Jarrett - are all products of the same radical leftist Chicago political machine, one known all too well for its take-no-prisoners, strong arm tactics mired in controversy and institutionalized corruption. Their credentials as such are bona fide.

Obama has been the quintessential Chicago politician ever since the beginning of his political career in 1995. His credentials also include strong arming private institutions as a community organizer, including representing the now-disgraced ACORN in their litigation of Citibank for their supposedly 'less than stellar lending record' to inner city minorities as well as his close connections to the Daley machine, Tony Rezko, Bill Ayers, Governor Blagojevic, and variety of other corrupt, radical political personalities. Like Obama, Jarrett, Axelrod and Emanuel also have had close ties to Harold Washington and Richard Daley machines as well as radical organizations like STORM. Furthermore, Emanuel is known in Washington circles with his temper and thuggish behavior, which includes having sent a dead fish to a pollster he took issue with while he was in Congress.

The existence of a Nixonian enemies list is by now well accepted among Washington circles as well as in the blogesphere - both on the right and the left. In the short 9 months since taking office, the Obama WH has succeeded in putting together an enemies list that includes anyone who poses perceived threat to their agenda. Although it is difficult to buy in to the speculation in some circles that President Obama is just a tool for the other three who are the real brains in the daily operations of the WH, it is logical to deduce that this is a group effort by four purpose driven ideologues with what can be called socialist, if not Marxist, pasts. As such, and being the products of their political environment, they see this as their best and probably only chance to influence the course of this nation and are determined to succeed at any cost. The question is, will America wake up in time?

Quote of the Week

Any society that would give up a little liberty for a little security will deserve neither and lose both.
Benjamin Franklin

White House Lifts Gag Order on Insurance Companies

The Obama Administration has finally lifted its ban on Humana and other private insurance companies from sending health care reform related material it deems 'misleading' or 'confusing'. Gotta love the 'Chicago way' of conducting business in our new thugocracy!

Quote of the Week

The welfare of humanity is always the alibi of tyrants.

Albert Camus

The Shame of Nobel Prize Committee

When the Nobel Prize Committee conferred the 2009 Nobel Prize for Peace on President Obama last week, those of us who are well aware of the ideological aura surrounding the prestigious award were not nearly as surprised as the president's closest political allies were. Although precedence was clearly broken by awarding the prize to someone who had actually not accomplished anything substantive towards world peace (especially since he had been in the Office for only eleven days when he was nominated), the result was in keeping with the sometime shameful track-record associated with the institution. The committee later claimed that the awarding of the prize was in accordance with the guidelines set forth by Nobel himself. "To those who say a Nobel is too much too soon in Obama's young presidency, we simply disagree ... He got the prize for what he has done," committee chairman Thorbjorn Jagland told The Associated Press. There are, however, significant problems with this assertion. Alfred Nobel wrote that the prize should "go to the person who has contributed most to the development of peace in the previous year". The statement of Mr. Jagland is contradictory to reality as well as the Committee's own acknowledgement that Obama merited the award based on providing hope to the progressive liberals of the world. Hope is not a substantive contribution other than in the utopian progressive mind set, and the president was only a junior Senator with no significant foreign affairs experience during the previous year. Based on these two points alone, the lack of integrity on the part of the committee is not only astonishing but saddening in the memory of Alfred Nobel who was a realist as well as a humanitarian.

The true reason for awarding the Peace Prize to President Obama is self evident when examining Obama's words and actions over the length of his public career in light of Nobel Committee's general philosophy.

The president has on numerous occasions indicated his visions of a 'more just' America that plays by everyone else's rules in the international arena. He said the award was "an affirmation of American leadership on behalf of aspirations held by people in all nations." This statement naively assumes that the the interests of nations and peoples are shared. Nothing could be further from the truth since geo-politics and human nature have resulted in human conflict as long as humans have inhabited the earth. To think otherwise is to ignore almost 10 millenia of written history in the tradition of Wilsonian idealism (which also earned him the Peace Prize, which proves that the Nobel Committee has been dominated by left wing idealists practically from the beginning). One needs to look no further than Mr. Obama's address to the U.N. last month to put it all in perspective. No American president, not even Jimmy Carter, has ever expressed such implicit hostility toward his own nation's pre-eminence in world affairs while relishing in its failings, nor have any elevated himself and his own virtues over those of his country.

Mr. Jagland said "Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world's attention and given its people hope for a better future." Dissecting this statement requires no intellectual effort in the light of the President's unmistakable globalist aspirations and the Nobel committee's (and the left's) life long desire to cut America down to size and undo her perceived wrong doings by redistributing its wealth among less fortunate nations. During his first 9 months, Mr. Obama has been on what seems like one continuous apology tour around the world where the consistent theme has been the rejection of American exceptionalism. We have turned our back not only on our traditional allies in Israel, but also the Czechs, Poles, dissidents from Burma to Venezuela, Hondurans, and Colombians to mention just a few. The message being sent is a strong signal that we will not stand up for dissidents in oppressed societies anymore. We now proudly cuddle the dictatorial regimes in Iran, North Korea, Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua, and the like with the false hope that our good will is enough for them to transform in to humanitarian regimes. The progressive notion that America is somehow unjust is the official stance and the unmistakable message to the world is that America is no longer willing to carry on with its role as the leader of the world - a message that even the failed foreign policies of President Carter could not deliver, try as he did!

Undoubtedly, one of the biggest attractions Obama had for the Nobel committee was his vision of ridding the world of nuclear weapons as hair brained as the idea is. After all, Obama had already shown his willingness to disarm unilaterally and abandon our new allies in the Czech Republic and Poland earlier in the year. This is hope for future in the words of the Nobel committee? This is a down right dangerous world view, the kind that led to rise of Hitler and World War II - especially in an era when Russia is not only proving unreliable as an ally but clearly going back to its oppressive roots, while there are multiple serious threats in the near-east as well as central America. It, however, is also in keeping with the Nobel committee's and the left's track record as a whole. Nobel is the same institution that recognized likes of the U.N. and Secretary Annan - shortly preceded by the massacres in Rwanda and Bosnia, Yasser Arafat, and Rigoberta Menchu among a long list of despotic, deceptive, and down right shameful characters while ignoring likes of Gandhi and Ronald Reagan, who arguably freed hundreds of millions of oppressed people worldwide. The true track record of President Obama so far is utter failure as a strong world leader that even the french have seen through. It is a shame that policies that are calculated to make the U.S. popular come at the expense of all the oppressed people around the world who look up to us, yearning for liberties that are basic to all humans. What is just as shameful is a highly politicized Nobel committee whose actions would surely make Alfred Nobel roll over in his grave.

At long last...

Although it has been eight months since I planned to start American Patriot, it seemed I would never actually get around to posting on my own blog due to the time commitment I perceived as necessary. Well, finally here it is.

The main focus of this blog will be the analysis and discussion of current national and international news items. It is also my sincere hope that there will occasionally be vigorous discussions of philosophical differences between classical and progressive liberalism and their consistency with our constitutional principles. All that I ask is for all participants to be intellectually honest. As I pledge not to post 'allegations' that cannot be supported, I would like all comments to be substantive in nature as well. My challenge to all is to take a classical approach to thinking by weighing issues in the light of empirical evidence, balanced with a healthy dose of logic and historical perspective. Thank you in advance for your participation in this blog.