Stimulate THIS the Sequel!

Colorado — my home — looks to get about $3 billion worth of federal stimulus. Where will the money go? All over the place, it seems:

Over the next two years, Colorado would get $226 million to build new schools, $408 million to train workers, and $412 million for new highways, according to figures provided to Colorado lawmakers from Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.

The biggest winner would likely be state government, which would get nearly $1 billion to backfill a growing budget shortfall and keep state workers, including teachers, in their jobs. Additionally, the state would get $855 million to help offset skyrocketing Medicaid costs, an amount above the nearly $3 billion influx, according to an estimate by the Colorado Fiscal Policy Institute. The institute is a nonprofit, nonpartisan project of the Colorado Center on Law and Policy.

Now let me get this straight. Last year’s stimulus checks amounted to about $800 dollars per person, put in your very own bank account to stimulate as you yourself saw fit. And those checks accomplished, by my cocktail napkin calculations, perhaps slightly more than nothing. Maybe less.

This time around, around $500 or so per person will come into Colorado, entirely into the unaccountable cesspool of wasteful government spending. If real live cash money delivered to real live people did nothing, then how much good will even less money, more wastefully spent, accomplish?

If you answered “less than zero,” then go to the head of the class.