(excerpt introduction from web site)

What is StimulusWatch.org?

Congress and the President are getting ready to spend billions of dollars to try to stimulate the economy.  As a result, the U.S. Conference of Mayors has responded by releasing a list of "shovel-ready" projects in cities around the country that the mayors would like to see funded.  President Obama, however, has promised to spend stimulus dollars only on critical projects.

"What we need to do is examine what are the projects where we're going to get the most bang for the buck [and] how are we going to make sure taxpayers are protected," he has said.  "You know, the days of just pork coming out of Congress as a strategy, those days are over."

StimulusWatch.org was built to help the new administration keep its pledge and to hold public officials to account.  We do this by allowing you, citizens around the country with local knowledge about the proposed projects in your city, to find, discuss and rate those projects.

AMD.com Analysis of North Chicago Critical Projects and Job Creation Assumptions

Out of curiosity I randomly selected the single neighborhood of North Chicago and reviewed the 38 proposed shovel-ready projects listed.
 
The following represents a sample of proposals which stood out as potentially “non-critical” or logic-defying. (link)





Is Thermoplastic Striping a critical project?  Does it seem likely that 10 jobs were saved or created by spending $25,000 on this item?

If 10 jobs can be created by spending $10,000 on a street light installation (insert “how many people does it take to change a light bulb” joke here), why has it been necessary for the Government to spend $284,000 on average per job “created or saved” since the Stimulus Bill’s implementation?

Is it really worthwhile for the United States to assume another $40,000 in debt to replace vanity mirrors and medicine cabinets within a public housing development?

How exactly does spending $2,900 on a “shovel-ready” project create a job?

I assume that this list is representative of how a material portion of the $787 billion is being squandered nationwide, and observe that taxpayers will be servicing the debt on these projects long after the Thermoplastic Striping has faded.