Posted on 06/07/2010 12:23:43 PM PDT by mainsail that
""Welcome Aboard," the sign says.
The cost of the marquee, along with a smaller sign positioned near the airfield: $188,000. Among other odd legacies from war-on-terror spending since 2001 for the troops at Guantanamo Bay: an abandoned volleyball court for $249,000, an unused go-kart track for $296,000 and $3.5 million for 27 playgrounds that are often vacant.
The Pentagon also spent $683,000 to renovate a cafe that sells ice cream and Starbucks coffee, and $773,000 to remodel a cinder-block building to house a KFC/Taco Bell restaurant.
The spending is part of at least $500 million that has transformed what was once a sun-beaten and forgotten Caribbean base into one of the most secure military and prison installations in the world. That does not include construction bonuses, which typically run into the millions."
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...
And they say government can’t create jobs.
Sounds like a good place for the democrats to hold their next convention.
I really wish all taxpayers (including businesses) could just go on strike. Just don’t pay our taxes until the ruling class promises and delivers a balanced budget. We have to live within our budgets. The government needs to as well.
I want to go and use the go-kart track.
Thank god they didn’t create even more:
“In 2006, the Pentagon began soliciting bids for a permanent courthouse complex expected to cost as much $125 million. But with the future of detainee operations uncertain, it scaled back the size and scope of the project to a $13.4 million prefabricated structure.”
WASTED STIMULUS SPENDING:
• $125 million for the Washington sewer system.
• $150 million for Smithsonian museum facilities.
• $1 billion for the 2010 Census, which has a projected cost overrun of $3 billion.
• $75 million for “smoking cessation activities.”
• $200 million for public computer centers at community colleges.
• $75 million for salaries of employees at the FBI.
• $25 million for tribal alcohol and substance abuse reduction.
• $500 million for flood reduction projects on the Mississippi River.
• $10 million to inspect canals in urban areas.
• $6 billion to turn federal buildings into “green” buildings.
• $500 million for state and local fire stations.
• $650 million for wildland fire management on forest service lands.
• $1.2 billion for “youth activities,” including youth summer job programs.
• $88 million for renovating the headquarters of the Public Health Service.
• $412 million for CDC buildings and property.
• $500 million for building and repairing National Institutes of Health facilities in Bethesda, Maryland.
• $160 million for “paid volunteers” at the Corporation for National and Community Service.
• $850 million for Amtrak.
• $100 million for reducing the hazard of lead-based paint.
• $75 million to construct a “security training” facility for State Department Security officers when they can be trained at existing facilities of other agencies.
• $110 million to the Farm Service Agency to upgrade computer systems.
• $200 million in funding for the lease of alternative energy vehicles for use on military installations.
— $233,000 to the University of California at San Diego to study why Africans vote. Jobs created: 12, but seven of those are Africans in Africa.
— In Nevada, $2 million in stimulus money built a new fire station, but because of budget cuts, the county can’t afford to hire firefighters to work there.
— Penn State University got $1.5 million to study plant fossils in Argentina. Of 5 jobs created, 2 belong to Argentines.
— Researchers the State University of New York at Buffalo got $389,000 to pay 100 Buffalonians $45 each to record how much malt liquor they drink — and how much pot smoke each day. Consumption is then reported via an automated phone hotline. Cost per job: almost $200,000.
— The Obama administration is spending $5 billion to weatherize homes. But one Texas county spent $4 million to weatherize just 47 homes. That’s $78,000 per house. Each retrofit is supposed to save homeowners $500 a year in energy costs. That means taxpayers will recoup their investment in 156 years, long after the home is probably torn down.
— Two Arizona universities got almost $1 million dollars so 3 grad students can study how ants work. That’s more than $300,000 per job.
— Companies that raise tropical fish, shellfish, catfish, alligators and even turtles qualify for $50 million in tax money to buy fish food.
— North Carolina public schools received $4.4 million to hire math and literacy coaches, not for students, but teachers. That’s 64 people paid $70,000 each to teach teachers how to teach reading and math.
“$13.4 million prefabricated structure.”
Even still, sounds might pricey for prefab.
I bet you recoup the cost of those amenities over time if you turned Camp Costly into a real Club Gitmo where customers would pay to live in a cell like the terrorists and get waterboarded daily. After you get tortured you go out and use the track, skate park and other facilities.
I remember when War Profiteering was a badge of shame (and possible criminal charges). Now it’s the lead blurb on the quartely report.
I think this outrageous, but thinking back, the discussion was to make this our vanguard base on the war on terror. If so, thousands of solders and their families would have ended up being based there.
Since this is so isolated, it isn’t like the families at the base could go off-base to an amusement park or the local mall. Off-Base is a mine field surrounded by machine gun nests with concertina wire.
I think it would have been cheaper to keep the families in Key West and have the solders rotate back and forth between Keywest rather than build all of this stuff.
Frankly, I don't begrudge the sailors and marines stationed there anything at all. It's hardly a station anything like Paris, France (where Ted Kennedy served).
It’s not “sun-beaten” any more?
Wow. Bush really can control the weather!
Yes, and WHO is this wonderful new facility for?
The troops who work there. OR “the hundreds of lawyers, dignitaries, journalists and others who would travel here to attend military commissions.”
No terrorist are getting volleyball time, Starbuck ice cream floats, or any of the other multi-million dollar amenities. Plus it seems this contract was awarded to KBR four years ago.
It was paid for with Pentagon-controlled, DoD monies, NOT stimulus funds/
Let’s all be clear on what the facts in the story actually state.
This is NOT “Club Gitmo” for the terrorists kept there.
” I want to go and use the go-kart track. “
So do I, after all we paid for it.
How many jobs are created by the Department of Defense - not only through direct hiring of the military, but by all the contracts given to American businesses?
Is there a problem with creating jobs through DoD hiring? America gets a great deal for the money it spends in that area.
Or are you saying that the money spent on defense isn’t spent wisely?
Why so expensive?
The proven terrorists should already be dead, and those shown to be non-Al Qaeda should have been released long ago.
Why does the US Gov’t always make things so difficult?
“How many jobs are created by the Department of Defense - not only through direct hiring of the military, but by all the contracts given to American businesses?
Is there a problem with creating jobs through DoD hiring? America gets a great deal for the money it spends in that area.”
Looks like we know who you work for. Nothing wrong with creating jobs, in fact give me $20 Million and I’ll create not one, but 2 jobs.
How many jobs were lost when they government taxed us to death to get that $188K for two ‘Welcome to Gitmo’ signs and the volleyball court and ... If it wasn’t for those two signs, no one would know where they are, right?
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