From 2012.
With the government running a $1.2 trillion deficit this fiscal year, $18 million is chump change.
Taxpayers are the chumps.
There are more stories like this than any news service can track. But when we find them, we get insight into how government works when it is not being tyrannical.
There is a federal website called www.recovery.gov. It tracks the money that Obama’s stimulus spent: over $750 billion.
The Administration redesigned this site. It will cost money to run it. How much money? $18 million.
Now, that’s a stimulus!
The site was working before. No problem. But where’s the stimulus effect of that?
The Federal government paid a firm $9.5 million to redesign the site. It will pay $8.4 million more through 2014.
Why is this so expensive? Because, we are assured, there will be so much traffic.
So, I went to www.Alexa.com. It ranks sites in terms of traffic. I typed in www.Recovery.gov. I learned that the site is ranked in the top 151,400 worldwide. It is ranked 65,500 in the USA. For comparison, Google is ranked #1.
This site, www.TeaPartyEconomist.com, is ranked 83,200 worldwide and 15,500 in the USA. It has been online for about five months. It uses WordPress.org’s software, which is free. It uses a few plug-ins, which are free. This site and a dozen more like it are managed by one employee. He was an unpaid intern two months ago.
Spending by the federal government is out of control. You know it. I know it. But it will not stop. There is nothing that voters can do, or want to do, about it. They think this will go on forever. They think the bills will not come due. They are wrong.
When the bills come due, you had better not be sitting on a pile of IOUs issued by the U.S. government. That means Medicare. That means Social Security.
Continue reading on latimesblogs.latimes.com.
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Published on March 29, 2012. The original is here.
The site no longer exists.
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