“STIMULUS” FOR MICE: WITH UNEMPLOYMENT RISING, DEMOCRATS’ “STIMULUS” HELPS SAN FRANCISCO MICE, BUT NOT AMERICAN WORKERS

WASHINGTON TIMES ON GOP RESPONSE: MOUSE MONEY “EPITOMIZES THE FAILURE OF STIMULUS SPENDING TO HELP AN ECONOMY STILL SHEDDING JOBS”

How does helping the salt marsh harvest mouse help middle-class families and small businesses struggling with dramatic job loss during this recession?  That’s a good question to ask House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), other Democrats in Congress, and the Administration, as it was recently revealed that the tiny little mouse is getting $16 million in taxpayer dollars thanks to the Democrats’ “stimulus” spending bill that isn’t working.  House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-OH) exposed the mouse money in his weekly press briefing earlier today:

“The bottom line is this: the stimulus isn’t creating enough jobs, but here’s one thing the stimulus is accomplishing.  You’ll recall earlier this year on the debate on the stimulus bill, the Democrats promised that the stimulus bill would be free of earmarks.  And a lot of us disagreed.  We pointed to one particular request that we were convinced was going to be funded in this.  That was to protect the salt marsh harvest mouse near Speaker Pelosi’s district in San Francisco.  You remember the Democrats claimed ‘no no no, we’re not going to fund this, it’s not in the bill, it’s not going to happen.’  Well, guess what?  $16 million of the stimulus money was appropriated to take care of the salt marsh harvest mouse.” 

The Washington Times has the details about how the mouse got its money from a bill Democrats promised would be about creating jobs during the ongoing recession:

“The tiny mouse that became a hotly disputed symbol of wasteful spending in the congressional debate over the $787 billion economic stimulus bill has returned to pester House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.”

“The Obama administration quietly announced last week that as much as $16.1 million from the stimulus program is going to save the San Francisco Bay area habitat of, among other things, the endangered salt marsh harvest mouse.”

“That has revived Republican criticism that the pet project was an ‘invisible earmark’ in the massive spending bill for Mrs. Pelosi, whose San Francisco district abuts the bay, and epitomizes the failure of stimulus spending to help an economy still shedding jobs.”

Money for mice.  Is that what middle-class families and small businesses expected from the Democrats’ trillion-dollar “stimulus” spending bill?  Wasn’t the legislation supposed to create jobs “immediately” and keep unemployment below eight percent?  So let’s get this straight: the stimulus isn’t creating jobs for American workers, but it is making sure American harvest mice have nice comfortable homes in the midst of the recession.  No wonder the American people think Washington is so out of touch.