“Stimulus” on The Daily Caller

Shortly after taking office, President Barack Obama defended the weatherization portion of the stimulus bill in a February 2009 CBS interview, saying it would immediately put people back to work, reduce energy costs and lay the groundwork for future energy independence. (more)

European finance ministers ruled out efforts to prop up the faltering economy and gave no indication of providing aid for lenders to go along with yesterday’s liquidity lifeline from the European Central Bank. (more)

Who would have really expected a 300-point stock market plunge on the day after President Obama’s so-called jobs speech? (more)

As is typical of politicians generally, and Obama particularly, the response to continued U.S. economic anemia is yet another speech. On Thursday, President Obama, channeling the spirits of two long-deceased progressive presidents, combined Teddy Roosevelt’s bully pulpit with Woodrow Wilson’s penchant for omnipotent and omnipresent government to call for — wait for it — more “stimulus.” (more)

In his 1988 book “The Fatal Conceit,” Nobel Prize-winning economist Friedrich Hayek wrote, “The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design.” Despite the always-wonderful intentions and best-laid plans of administrations from FDR’s to Obama’s, the failed notion that presidents can “fix” the economy remains a bedrock canon of American politics. (more)

On Thursday the House Energy and Commerce Committee ramped up its ongoing investigation of the federal government’s $535 million loan to Solyndra, a solar energy company that recently announced it will file for bankruptcy. (more)

In a move that the company says will result in 1,100 layoffs, solar energy firm Solyndra announced its intent to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The company shuttered its headquarters Wednesday. (more)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Some Federal Reserve officials pushed in August for a more aggressive response to the economy’s slowdown. They settled for a plan to keep rates near zero for another two years and won agreement to discuss more options at an extended meeting in September. (more)

The Omaha Public Schools used more than $130,000 in federal stimulus dollars to buy each teacher, administrator and staff member a manual on how to become more culturally sensitive. (more)

Questioned by a New Hampshire voter Monday about the government’s $700 billion bailout for Wall Street, President Barack Obama’s former Chinese Ambassador Jon Huntsman dodged the question in a style much like that of former President Bill Clinton. (more)

China and other foreign interests have been significant beneficiaries of stimulus money through the Environmental Protection Agency, to the tune of some $27 million, since the law passed in February 2009. (more)

Obama’s so-called “stimulus bill” did not do much good for our economy. On the contrary, numbers provided by recovery.gov show that whatever jobs the bill “created” have come at astronomical costs. One very telling example: as of the first quarter of 2011, each “stimulus” job in Wyoming had cost taxpayers $477,000. (more)

President Obama got a good laugh from his liberal audience at the nationally televised meeting of his Council on Jobs and Competitiveness. At least all those who joined in the laughter there had jobs. (more)

Larry Summers, formerly one of the top economic advisors to President Obama, is advocating more government stimulus to jumpstart the struggling U.S. economy. (more)

With a flamboyant downgrade of the outlook for economic growth, jobs, and profits, Wednesday’s 280-point Dow plunge to launch the so-called June stock swoon is a warning shot across the bow. (more)

Having Pelosi and Obama in charge of spending is like putting Arnold Schwarzenegger and ex-IMF President Dominique Strauss-Kahn in charge of hiring the maids. (more)

The Congressional Budget Office said in a new report that President Obama’s economic stimulus law will raise the federal deficit $830 billion over ten years, $43 billion more than the initially estimated cost of $787 billion. (more)

WASHINGTON (CNNMoney) — Thousands of contractors who got stimulus money to do such things as build roads and provide social services owe more than $750 million in back taxes, a federal investigation has found. (more)

Back when I was on the governing board of a state college, I was surprised to learn that our redoubtable, familiar red-brick dorms and classroom buildings had a life span — determined by maintenance costs. On some campuses (not ours, fortunately), the buildings were slapped up to cope with the influx of baby boomer students and became shabby very quickly. I had a building inspector friend in the mid-1990s who had the grim task of dealing with a university music facility with a collapsing ceiling, but it was only 20 years old! Clearly, in the big-spending sixties and seventies, nobody thought about lifecycle budgeting, but it’s an idea that’s catching on now in our era of massive government fiscal constraints. (more)

The government goes to great lengths to control what those who speak with physicians can say to physicians. This is done out of concern that industry representatives have an agenda that could nefariously and inappropriately influence doctors. But what happens when the government starts talking to physicians? Who will be there to make sure that the government’s agenda doesn’t influence the doctor — especially when that agenda is cutting costs, not saving lives? (more)