Stan Geiger

Stimulation in Stillwater

I’m sure most folks have heard the story by now, the one about $1.15 million in “stimulus” money going to an OSU professor so she can study the habits of grandparents in Alaska. Dude, hold on to your “stimulus” hat and get ready for a six-figure job!

I think maybe it’s time we dropped the word “stimulus” from the discourse. The federal program that will spend $500 billion in borrowed money has nothing to do with “stimulus.” It’s all about politics.

KOTV---along with its sister station in OKC I’m sure---is doing an excellent job of exposing the details with the Oklahoma Impact series. Prior to the OSU story came notice of $26 million being spent rebuilding sidewalks in small-town Oklahoma. A handful of Mexican citizens will make a few bucks pouring concrete in Podunk for a few days. Then they’ll head back across the border and take their earnings with them. Super.

Small-town officials interviewed think it’s great. Hey, they get new sidewalks---and it’s free because the money comes from Uncle Sam!

See, that’s a major problem in America nowadays. A lot of folks seem to think federal money routed into a locality is free. It’s not. When people start paying a dollar a gallon in federal gasoline taxes and the payroll taxes they pay go from 7.65 percent of their incomes to 10 percent of their incomes, maybe they’ll get a clue.

Meanwhile, both the professor in question and an OSU administrator interviewed sought to justify the Alaska grant.

One of the things they mentioned was the value of research. They weren’t talking about researching a cure for cancer, you understand. They were talking about researching what old farts do in Alaska. If there’s one thing we’ve got plenty of in this country it is needless research.

You know, studies being done on the mating habits of crawdads living in Flint Creek, or on the socio-environmental impact of catfish noodling on the population of Locust Grove, or, uh-huh, on what old farts do in Alaska.

A case in point was reported recently. Any idiot can see the Oklahoma prison system is inadequate. I have no direct knowledge of the subject, yet even I can see the problem. Can our lawmakers see the problem? Well, apparently not. They commissioned one of them there studies. They paid nearly half a million dollars for it.

The conclusions presented by the studiers were hardly a shock to me. The study said we need to invest half a billion dollars in the system, we need to add 2,500 beds and the prison in McAlester needs to be torn down and replaced.

Will our fabulous “leaders” act on the recommendations they paid half a million bucks in tax money to get? No, they won’t. The study will land on some shelf where it will gather dust until the next study on the prison system is commissioned.

Liberals complain of incarceration rates in Oklahoma. Would you like to know how to fix that problem? Would ya, would ya, huh, huh, huh?

Oh, okay, quit whining. I’ll enlighten you.

Increase the size of the prison system so it can house the number of criminals necessary. Criminals understand there isn’t enough prison space in the state to hold all of them. I mean criminals are stupid but they aren’t that stupid. So, we build enough space for all of them. We send the message that if you do the crime in Oklahoma, you do the time in Oklahoma. You do all the time in Oklahoma; you don’t get out early due to a lack of space.

Do you know what would happen if we made such a commitment? Criminals would leave the state. Like I said, criminals are stupid but they aren’t that stupid. They’d move. And, ba-da-bing, we’ve got nobody to incarcerate because criminals don’t live here anymore. You dig?

But why use public money for something that makes sense when you can give it to some cow that works at OSU? Politics, that’s why. Buy those educators. That’s been the Democratic motto for years.

What does this deal mean to the cow? It means a lot of free trips to Alaska. I imagine a sabbatical comes with the deal, too. In other words, the cow gets a year or two off with pay so she can do her marvelous study on the habits of old farts in Alaska.

If you want to study the habits of old farts, why not study old farts in Oklahoma?

Well, according to the cow, Oklahoma’s old farts aren’t the same as Alaska’s old farts. Translation: If the cow studies Oklahoma’s old farts, the cow don’t get no trips to Alaska on the taxpayer dime.

What of the economic impact? Well, according to the cow, two temporary jobs have been created by the study. Over a million bucks in taxpayer money goes in, two temporary jobs that likely pay something next to squat come out.

Do you feel stimulated?

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