35% of Porkulus Has NOT Been Spent Yet-But POTUS Asking For More

When I was growing up, my Mom always told me that I should finish what was on my plate before I asked for more, perhaps President Obama should follow my Mother's advice.  When the stimulus bill was passed nineteen months ago, we were told that the nearly billion dollars of new federal spending would be invested in "shovel ready projects," much of it on infrastructure. That, as Congressman Wilson might say, is a lie.

While the American economy continues to sink into the toilet 19 months after the passage of the porkulus bill, 35% of the money from the legislation has not been spent.

Using the data from ProPublica, the chart below shows that almost $280 of the $790 billion original fiscal stimulus program is still in the system  either unspent or in progress' total 35% of the total

This $278 billion will likely be delivered by the end of 2010, and it's a huge sum for just four months. Obviously the Democrats were so sure that the first 65% would work, they gambled on the remaining dollars hitting around election day. Oops that didn't work .


Now the President wants to spend even more on infrastructure. Over the weekend he announced

he wants to borrow another $50 Billion from countries like China so we can initiate new shovel-ready projects. Even though almost 6 times that money has yet to be spent from the first stimulus. And just like the first stimulus, this money will not be spent for more than a year. Earlier this week senior presidential advisers told Fox, that despite what the president said, under even the most optimistic scenarios, no jobs would be created until next year.

Or to put another way, this latest Obama stimulus effort is designed not to stimulate the economy, but to stimulate Democratic party votes in close congressional races, this November.

Last week readers were asked to pick a name for the new stimulus program, the winner by a landslide was

Federal Deficit Enhancement Program: