No different than President Roosevelt’s Work Programs Administration (WPA), President Obama’s $788 billion stimulus program sought to create jobs for the sole sake of creating jobs – not because the economy actually demanded the jobs. But unlike the WPA, which actually succeeded in employing three million people, Obama’s “stimulus” has failed to create many jobs at all. And of the few produced, they’ve certainly not been the “shovel-ready” ones he promised. Additionally, the jobs evaporate as quickly as your tax dollars vanish before your eyes. After all, if the jobs were legitimate – necessary to occupy a void not already fulfilled in the existing market – then the private sector would have already been on the scene and stepped up to the plate long before the government got there with a plan to waste your money. One of the best examples of government making jobs for the purpose of making jobs is the nearly $1.5 million that went to build a bus station – you read that correctly, bus “station,” not to improve a bus “system” – in Manitowoc, a sleepy Wisconsin town. Manitowoc with a population of roughly 33,000 people has bus station, which hardly could be characterized in a significant – if at all – state of disrepair. In fact according to the town’s local paper, the existing structure could use only minimal updates like fixing wheel chair ramps and mending a leaky ceiling. But the really deplorable component of the building is that it has a “windowless basement.” The horror! Had Manitowoc chosen the responsible path and opted to make minor improvements to the perfectly functioning, existing station, it’s inconceivable that those improvements could have cost over $1 million.

Environmentally-focused nongovernmental organizations (NGO) are a valid and, oftentimes, valuable part of global political life. NGO’s allow people with a shared interest or concern to impact policies on a multinational level. Much like nonprofit and political organizations in the United States, however, when tax dollars are used to fund NGOs, taxpayers are often forced to fund organizations that are at odds with their own beliefs and values. Today, the Taxpayers Protection Alliance (TPA) released “The Environmental Shakedown of American Taxpayers," a report highlighting the misuse of tax dollars by environmental Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs). This report exposes more than $470 million in taxpayer money from across the globe used to subsidize questionable and controversial environmental NGOs. These organizations are not only receiving tax dollars despite their 'non-governmental' status but are spending these funds to advance radical agendas, often at the expense of developing economies in some of the world's poorest regions.