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Yet more examples of how the "stimulus" bill has promoted pork rather than growth.  Reports the New York Times:

A $14.7 million stimulus project to replace an airport on a remote island in Alaska was one of several airport stimulus projects that were questioned in an advisory issued last weekby the inspector general of the Transportation Department. The airport averages only 42 flights a month.

The advisory found that the Federal Aviation Administration had awarded $38.5 million to low-priority airport projects of questionable economic merit, and that it had awarded $15 million more to four airports whose operators had been cited in the past for trouble managing federal grants. The aviation agency selected the projects as part of a $1.1 billion stimulus program for improving airports around the nation.

Two of the airports the inspector general cited were in Alaska. The $14.7 million project calls for replacing the airport in Ouzinkie, a village of around 170 people, mostly of Russian Aleut ancestry, located on an island about 12 miles north of Kodiak. The second calls for spending $13.9 million to replace the airport in Akiachak, a remote Yup'ik Eskimo village in western Alaska with a population of around 660.

The advisory said they were among several low-priority airport projects that were selected in part because the F.A.A. wanted to "ensure widespread geographic distribution of funds," even though that was not a requirement of the stimulus law, the advisory found.

What is truly amazing is that anyone could have believed that it would have turned out any differently.

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More Blog Posts by Doug Bandow

http://spectator.org/blog/2009/08/12/stimulating-pork-not-economic

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