It seems to us here at Scaling The Hill 2010 that the Federal Stimulus Project has taken another wrong turn. Over the weekend, the Boston Herald reported that the IRS received roughly $80 million in federal stimulus money to upgrade a 400,000 square foot complex in Andover; they already had on hand $11.4 million for the work. Of all the wasteful projects that have received money from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, this one seems to take the cake.Back on February 13, 2009 when Congress signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, they touted the bill as a tool that would help stimulate the economy, invest in long term growth, and most importantly put the American people back to work. However, the federal government is dishing out millions of dollars to one of its counterparts for “green” renovations when road and bridges need urgent attention and 9.5% of our population is unemployed. Apparently they spoke too soon.
Just last year 1,400 employees were laid off from the Andover site because they were switching over to a more automated system. In addition, the project was listed in a December 2009 report, compiled by Senator McCain, which ranked 100 projects funded by ARRA in which stimulus money was “wasted, mismanaged or directed towards silly and shortsighted projects.” These are two extremely obvious signs that this project will not put people back to work or stimulate the economy in any fashion.
The Obama Administration’s dictionary must be outdated, because our version defines the word “stimulus” as: “Something to excite to activity or growth or to greater activity.” However, we have not seen any of that in Massachusetts. We urge the President to contact us if he needs an updated version of his dictionary.
