Obamanomics in Action: Feds Spend $2.5 Million per Stimulus Job

Photo Credit: APIt’s more than a little disheartening when the chief executive officer of one of America’s most storied Fortune 500 corporations is “comfortable” with the fact that his company created a mere 10 jobs with a $25 million grant under President Obama’s economic stimulus program in 2010. The CEO in question is Honeywell’s David Cote, and the stimulus grant involved came from the Department of Energy to advance Obama’s green energy agenda. The funds were to be used by Honeywell’s UOP subsidiary to build a biofuels technology demonstration plant in Oahu, Hawaii, supposedly creating 85 construction jobs and 40 permanent positions in each succeeding year.

The Energy Department further envisioned a facility producing biomass fuels “on a commercial scale … with the potential to create approximately 800 construction jobs and 1,000 permanent jobs, including in biomass production.”

The problem now is that it appears to be all but impossible to determine whether those rosy projections will come to pass. An April 2012 news report by Honolulu Civil Beat, a trade publication, quoted James Rekoske, Honeywell UOP’s vice president for renewable energy, saying only “about 10 jobs” had been created at that point. (The Energy Department refused to provide Civil Beat with a copy of Honeywell’s grant application.)

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