Academic

I Pay Dead People

By Tim Zinnecker

Tom Coburn (pictured) is a U.S. Senator from Oklahama.  (We may become more familiar with him in days to come, given his membership on the Senate Judiciary Committee.)  His online biography states that his Senate priorities include ?reducing wasteful spending.?  Earlier this week he issued a report entitled 100 Stimulus Projects: A Second Opinion, which ?discloses 100 of the worst examples of waste in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, or stimulus bill.  The projects included in the report ? worth $5.5 billion ? range from Maine to California, and even two from the state of Oklahoma.?  Senator Coburn offers detailed summaries of his top ten ?most questionable stimulus projects,? including (at #9) the Social Security Administration?s mailing of 10,000 checks to dead people.   If anything will stimulate the deceased, it just might be the whiff of free government money!

Full post as published by The Faculty Lounge on June 18, 2009 (boomark / email).