Hardly Stimulating....

Well, some of Obama's stimulus money is finally trickling through, yet nevertheless the jobless rates continue to soar. Well, perhaps with the exception of one of the Democrat's favorite constituencies: marginal actors and actresses:

In February the NEA received $50 million from the administration's American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to preserve jobs in the arts...

Over at GALA Hispanic Theatre, the city's largest Latino performing arts group, the federal grant of $50,000 came just in time. "Now we are able to continue to employ our technical director and hire an additional technical director who speaks Spanish,"

Arena Stage is using its $50,000 to reinstate two positions. The National Building Museum is using its grant of the same amount to retain a job.

Wow! Jobs that pay no more than $25K/year! I guess that's the new "sustainable wage" under the Obama administration, at least before cap-and-trade jacks up our energy prices by another 100%....

And oh, that sense of entitlement - and sense of overwhelming importance - from our artists, who suffer so much more than the out of work construction worker or banker who can no longer support a family:

Dorothy Kosinski, the director of the Phillips Collection, which also received $50,000, said the money is more than welcome at a time of economic stress but also gives an imprimatur to the arts community. The grants, she said, show the necessity of the arts as "part of our essential national infrastructure..."

ARCH Development, a nonprofit group that works to revitalize the Anacostia neighborhood through the arts, is using its $50,000 to support two existing salaries, said a spokeswoman.

Hopefully, when your taxes are jacked through the roof, you can go see a play in Spanish at the GALA Hispanic theatre and let all of your troubles slide away, knowing that their need for a technical director is more important than your family's need to eat.

Maybe some of this taxpayer money being lavished on groups that are saving neighborhoods through interpetive dance is a bit excessive? After all, there's not even enough money left to pay for people who are supposed to vet the whole disbursement process:

Some of the jobs being created by the economic-stimulus law are going to be of the unpaid variety.

The feds are putting out a call for volunteers willing to sort through stacks of applications to decide who gets nearly $5 billion from a program meant to boost Internet access.

The workers won't get a dime for their efforts to help administer President Obama's $787 billion stimulus package, which is meant to create jobs by injecting money into the economy.

Meanwhile, Vice President Joe Biden appeared at Shenendehowa High School, north of Albany, to promote the stimulus plan....

Wait until these guys get to ration healtcare and control the flow of energy....