Recently, I wrote a column that listed examples of some ridiculous government spending associated with the economic stimulus bill.

Evidently, many people have no idea of the number of unbelievable ways that politicians are spending our hard earned tax dollars.

This isn’t a new thing; the sad fact is that some people we have sent to represent us in Washington have not been listening to us for years. You might say that they are completely out of touch with the American people, and have been for a long time.

Presently, our country is going through some terrible economic times – millions of Americans are out of work and the outlook for people finding jobs is bleak.

Yet, with all these problems, Americans are determined to turn things around. They are becoming more involved in politics and are demanding answers from their representatives, at all levels of government, and that’s a good thing.

After doing some more research on how the stimulus money is being spent, I was appalled at what I found – it is much more than I can include here and I encourage you to go online and “Google” this topic to see for yourselves where our tax dollars are going.

In all fairness, some of the money has gone to some worthy projects but when you consider the sad financial condition of Social Security; it makes no sense for politicians to be throwing money at brainless projects.

Here are a few more examples of the mindless spending: $427,824 is going to a research grant to design better video games for senior citizens – $10,346 is going to a heating and cooling company to provide “escort services” for other companies performing a laser scanning survey at a courthouse in Honolulu, Hawaii.

According to The Washington Examiner, there will be $389,357 spent to compare outcomes of the concurrent and separate use of malt liquor and marijuana. The Examiner also reports that $3.4 million will go for a 13-foot tunnel for turtles and other wildlife attempting to cross U.S. Highway 27 in Lake Jackson, Fla. Also, the government plans to erect “thousands” of signs at road construction sites across the country announcing that the projects are funded by stimulus money. The signs cost $300 apiece.

It seems that the government is real interested in drugs because another lame use of stimulus money, $148,438 to be exact, will go to Washington State University to analyze the use of marijuana in conjunction with medication like morphine. Then there’s that $9.38 million going to renovate a century-old train depot in Lancaster County, Pa., that has not been used for three decades.

You would think a better use could be found for the $1.15 million that will be used to install a guardrail for a persistently dry lakebed in Guymon, Okla. And I’m sure the majority of Americans would rather see $2.3 million spent on better border security instead of going to the U.S. Forest Service to raise large numbers of arthropods, including Asian beetles.

It’s imperative that Americans realize that we have an election coming in November and with it an opportunity to start changing the way our hard-earned money is being spent by arrogant politicians in Washington.

Maybe, after November, we will have individuals in power who won’t send $2.5 million in stimulus checks to people who are deceased.

He made these remarks while celebrating an Islamic holiday with fellow Muslims at the White House. This should remove any doubts that this man is a Muslim and supports Islam. The time for impeachment is now!

It seems that Americans are being asked more and more these days to “tighten their belts.” In other words we are told that, in these bad economic times, we should be careful how we spend our money and not be frivolous with it.

When in fact, many ordinary citizens are currently doing all they can to survive and many of them do good just to get by these days without being the least bit frivolous.

It’s outrageous that the feds tell us to watch what we spend while they take our hard earned tax dollars and spend them on some mighty ridiculous things.

Not long ago, Congress passed a so-called stimulus bill that was supposed to do great things towards reviving the economy. But so far, it doesn’t seem to be doing much to ease the financial pain of our citizens or the thousands of small businesses across the country.

I don’t claim to be an economic expert, but when I see how some of this money is being spent, it certainly makes me doubt the mindset of the people doing the spending. As a matter of fact, it makes me downright angry.

Recently two members of Congress released a new report which they named “Summertime Blues: 100 Stimulus Projects that Give Taxpayers the Blues.”

U.S. Senators Tom Coburn, M.D. (R-OK) and John McCain (R-AZ) wrote this report.

Now I realize that both of these men are Republicans but the contents of their article are available for all to see online at Coburn’s website. According to Coburn and McCain, it contains examples of the stimulus project that are both wasteful and unsuccessful in creating jobs.

All politicians, Republican or Democrat, will argue for or against the stimulus bill depending on which side they happen to be, but when facts are presented; it’s up to the people to decide if they think their tax dollars are being spent with some sort of wisdom and common sense.

After reading the report, and seeing the examples of ridiculous spending, I felt compelled to share it with you in this column.

I’ve picked out a few that will give you some idea of where your hard-earned dollars are going. Let’s start with the $1.9 million that will be spent on international ant research. Well, I have ants and all I need to know is how to get rid of them – I can find that out at the local hardware store and it probably isn’t going to cost more than five or six bucks.

Here are a few more: $554,763 is going to the Forest Service to replace windows in a closed visitor’s center at Mount St. Helens; $200,000 will be sent to communities in Siberia to help them lobby Russian policy makers; $760,000 is going to Georgia Tech so they can study improvised music.

I was under the impression that this stimulus money was supposed to help folks in the United States – so why are they spending $529,648 to study the effects of local populations on the environment…in the Himalayas? And why are they spending $456,663 to study the circulation of Neptune’s atmosphere?

These are just a few examples of how our money is being spent. I’m wondering why all these funds can’t be put towards Social Security or perhaps better border security. Maybe we could use it to feed the thousands of hungry people right here in America.

I use the word “unbelievable” a lot, but that’s the way I feel when I see what corrupt politicians are doing to this country, and all the while thumbing their noses at the people who they’re supposed to serve.

In my opinion, it makes no difference what political party happens to be in power – there is corruption on both sides of the aisle. We need to make every effort to elect honest, patriotic people who have some common sense; and we need to demand term limits for members of Congress.

Maybe when Americans become more informed and involved in politics, from the local level all the way to the top, perhaps we won’t be spending $700,000 to study why monkeys respond negatively to inequity. Yep, that’s also in the stimulus bill.