Barack Obama could not have been more pleased to announce the “welcome news” that the latest report from the Commerce Department showed a respectable 3.5% growth in the countries third quarter GDP. Obama gleefully reported that this growth is “an affirmation that this recession is abating and the steps we’ve taken have made a difference.”

To be sure, 3.5% growth, the first growth since the second quarter of 2008, is a welcome change from the previous declines and under most circumstances would be cause for celebration. But a closer look at the numbers reveals just how cooked these books really are.

The GDP gain was mainly driven by an increase in consumer spending. Just about two thirds of the overall growth is attributable to the 3.4% rise in consumer spending versus the nearly 1% drop in the previous quarter. Most of that additional spending is related to the temporary increase in new car sales driven by the Cash for Clunkers program. The core inflation index slid from 2.0% in the previous quarter down to 1.4% indicating otherwise lackluster spending causing downward pricing pressure.

As Cash for Clunkers was a onetime program that added no new jobs and only stimulated a short burst of new spending the celebration currently being enjoyed by Obama and his minions in Congress will be short-lived indeed. That is of course unless the spend-happy Democrats are able to find some other suitable programs to artificially inflate the numbers.

As I am known far and wide as being a helpful kinda guy I have taken it upon myself to come up with some suggestions for the Democrats to consider. How about:

Dollars for Dog Fighting – As Rush Limbaugh will not be allowed to be even a minority owner of an NFL football team because of his conservative views, and as Michael Vick was welcomed back into the NFL after having been convicted of feloniously supporting a hideously cruel dog fighting ring, one can only draw the conclusion that dog fighting is a more acceptable past time than being conservative. As such, the government could get in on the new burgeoning market of allowing two dogs, which have been brutally abused since birth, to fight to the death by supporting the development of new and improved dog fighting techniques.

Funds for Felons – Forget about spending all that money on law enforcement trying to catch criminals after the fact by sending those who are considering major crimes a check before they break the law. Most offenders will be sated, at least until the money runs out, and therefore crime figures will be decreased allowing cities and towns to reduce their police forces. I am certain that this program could be easily sold to the public by showing how it will pay for itself in reduced police expense, overtime for all that nasty paperwork and court costs.

Denaros for Deadbeat Dads – Here is an opportunity to help one of the most misunderstood poverty groups in America. It is obvious that these poor runaway fathers don’t have the funds to support their children. Otherwise they would send their child support checks, right? This money will also help to stimulate the liquor and cheap hotel markets.

Money for Marijuana and Meth – Let’s be honest. No matter what, folks are going to do dope. Just ask any high school guidance counselor. This program, along with Funds for Felons, will help to further reduce crime by giving pot heads the necessary funds to not only buy their dope but also Twinkies, Oreos and in the case of the meth users, much needed dental implants.

Bucks for Big Screens – Seeing as the government obviously views watching television as an inalienable right through the free digital converter box program, would it not also be a right to view it on a big honking plasma screen TV. What’s the sense of having digital transmission if you have to watch it on a little screen? This will not only be a benefit to the big box appliance stores but will also be a direct benefit to Barack Obama as his voting base will be able to see him more clearly during his near-daily infomercials.

Currency for Coffee – Hey, at 4 bucks plus a cup if the government doesn’t step in soon with some support some of the 15 to 20 million barista’s currently pouring coffee in America could be forced to look for new careers.

Tender for Toddlers – No this isn’t a program where people actually sell their babies (although that may become an amendment at some point down the line). This would be a program where the government would begin sending welfare checks to people from the moment they are born. Why wait until they drop out of school and begin to have kids of their own. This way those who are hopelessly trapped in the liberal slavery of welfare can get used to waiting for the mailman for their support as soon as they are able to see out the window.

Cash for Condoms – This program speaks for itself. It is the very definition of a “stimulus” program and will certainly help see us through the hard times.

Well, those are just a few of my ideas. I hope they help.

In this new age of trillion-speak nobody seems to be able to do the addition anyway. And when I say nobody I am speaking of the huddled masses yearning to breathe hope and change as well as the news media that is selling the fiction regardless of the facts.

The absolute absurdity of the comments coming out of Washington DC and the placid acceptance of every duplicitous word by the supposed defenders of truth in the media, while currently increasing the false sense of jocund, will only serve to multiply the height from which those who hold this evanescent hope plummet. With almost every comment defending the non-stimulus spending package the American public is treated to even more pabulum by the dutiful liberals reporting on it.

One example of this vagary is reported out of the small town of North Manchester, Indiana, where $3.8 million of the non-stimulus money is going to be spent building a new water treatment facility. While the town will have a new facility and some temporary construction jobs, this project will create only 24 jobs in total and none of them will be from North Manchester. For that matter better than half of them won’t even be from Indiana. Democrats are pointing to the fact that these workers will be staying at hotels and eating in restaurants as providing stimulus. Nobody covering this story has bothered to question this salubrious claptrap and instead the press is descending on The Treeway Inn to interview the owner of this aged 24 room hotel. While it is true that The Treeway and the local Mr. Dave’s restaurant will indeed have some short term cash influx it will hardly be stimulus for the economy. You see these 24 workers, who will be on t he job at various times over the course of this project, would be eating in their home town if they weren’t in North Manchester. The influx of new business at Mr. Dave’s will have an exact opposite reduction in spending in the laborers home town eatery and gin mill.

Granted the job will employ 24 workers for a short period of time, but at $3.8 million it works out to almost $160,000 per job. This project is only one of a proposed dozen projects with a total price tag of $36 million. If the other projects run in the same cost factors that will mean 240 people will have a temporary job for as long as the projects last. This area in Indiana has lost more than twice that amount recently with the loss of several small manufacturing plants, and this so called stimulus is doing nothing to bring those permanent jobs back.

Instead of spending money on water treatment plants that would have had to been replaced anyway and calling it stimulus, develop a plan that attracts businesses and industry that will create real jobs that last longer than the 6 months you can actually pour concrete in Indiana.

Instead the Obama administration is punishing investment by small business owners by raising their taxes and making it less likely that they will venture into new operations.

For the time being North Manchester, Indiana will bask in the new found wealth of half a dozen ditch diggers buying Italian hoagies from the CITGO station.

You almost have to admire how Democrats can make that add up to fiscal salvation.

Almost.

Even though I have taken only a summary look at the line item details of the $787 billion bill which Congressional Democrats and the President are falsely avowing to be stimulus, I can honestly say that the Monumental Plaza in Mexico City, the world’s largest bullfighting arena, has never seen this much bullshit.

What this debt burden to our great grandchildren appears to be is a spending package with more earmarks than Dumbo’s pillow and American taxpayers should be outrages to the point of recalling these drunken sailors. This is far more an historic welfare and Democrat wish list spending bill than anything else.

To be sure, there are a few items that could be twisted to look like stimulus to the currently receding economy or aid to the unemployed and their families. It makes no sense to argue at this point anything that could reasonably be construed as stimulating the economy within the next 18 months. But these line items are but a few of the non-stimulating expenses or items that will not have any impact for at least 2 years. They are described here exactly as listed:

$24 Million – Repairs, security improvements & rental payments at the Dept. of Agriculture
$176 Million – Repairs & security improvements at the Agricultural Research Service
$130 Million – Guaranteed loans for rural community facility
$2.5 Billion – Broadband grants to rural communities
$25 Million – Oversight of department of Agriculture spending
$749 Million – Crop insurance reinstatement for farmers who failed to keep up with premiums
$1 Billion – Extra money for the Census
$350 Million – Salary and expenses for program to create national broadband inventory map
$6 Million – Oversight of Commerce Department spending
$230 Million – Extra money for National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration research
$600 Million – Extra money for NOAA satellite development and climate data sensors
$225 Million – Grants for violence against women prevention programs
$10 Million – Cost of administering extra grant money
$400 Million – NASA shuttle
$400 Million – NASA climate research
$150 Million – NASA aeronautics research
$2 Million – NASA spending oversight
$100 Million – NSF education activities
$2 Million – NSF spending oversight
$15 Million – Department of Defense spending oversight
$300 Million – Funding for Energy Star program
$84 Million – Funding for Recovery and Accountability Transparency Board
$7 Million – Oversight into General Services Administration spending
$20 Million – EPA spending oversight
$50 Million – Grants to fund art projects in non-profit sector
$500 Million – Training of nurses, doctors and dentists to practice in underserved communities
$9.5 Billion – National Institute of Health biomedical research
$1.1 Billion – To research comparing effectiveness of Medicare and Medicaid treatment
$1 Billion – Head Start program for preschoolers
$1.1 Billion – Early Head Start for low income infants
$50 Million – Grants to faith based and community organizations
$100 Million – Grants for elderly Meals on Wheels program
$2 Billion – Extra money for Office of National Coordination for Health Information Technology
$1 Billion – Community health programs and vaccinations
$13 Billion – Funding for Title 1 programs for low income children
$12 Billion – -Grants for special education programs
$17 Billion – Increase Pell grants to low income students
$60 Million – To increase college’s student aid funds
$200 Million – For colleges works study programs
$250 Million – Funding for states to create systems to track individual student data
$14 Million – Department of Education spending oversight
$160 Million – Extra money for AmeriCorps volunteer program
$40 Million – Extra Money for National Trust volunteer program
$90 Million – Passport and training funding for State Department
$290 Million – Creation of information management backup facility for State Department
$2.5 Billion – Energy efficiency retrogrades for low income families

This is only an incomplete short list of all the non-stimulus spending included in this near 1200 page spending bill. It’s not that all these items are not worthy; it’s that they are not stimulus for an economy on the brink of disaster. It is a congressional folly of unprecedented proportions.

You don’t paint the porch when the house is on fire.