Stimulus? Waste? Imagine that!

Federal stimulus spending was in the news again this week, and not in a good way.

Unfortunately, wasteful spending right here in Montana was part of that news. The Associated Press reported that Canada plans to close its side of a Saskatchewan-Montana border crossing at Whitetail, where the U.S. government is spending $8.5 million to upgrade its border crossing facilities.

Months ago, we blasted this project as an example of obviously wasteful stimulus spending, mainly because the crossing gets only five travelers a day on average.

But now it appears it will be a one-way crossing, as you will only be able to cross from Canada into the United States. This is an outrageous case of highly misdirected spending, under the guise of “creating jobs” through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

Rep. Denny Rehberg, R-Mont., said he recently met with citizens in Daniels and Sheridan counties, near the Whitetail crossing, who also regard it as a waste of money.

While Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., praised border improvement projects when they were announced last year, he now plans to talk with residents in those counties and border officials to see if the Whitetail project needs to be halted or adjusted. That would be the common-sense thing to do.

But common sense is clearly missing from many stimulus projects, and it was entirely predictable that would be the case when the government started dispersing the money to hundreds of state and federal agencies last year. The Obama administration estimates there are now 70,000 Recovery Act projects under way. Yikes!

That probably made it fairly easy for two Republican senators to prepare a report that was released this week slamming 100 stimulus projects.

Sure, folks can dismiss the report as a partisan play, but our bet is that most Americans would agree that the projects are indeed egregiously wasteful.

A few examples:

The American Legacy Project got a $498,000 grant to provide Blackberry phones to Washington, D.C., residents who are trying to quit smoking. The phones would allow them to call hotlines for help.

About $1 million went for iPod Touch devices for 1,600 students at Kearns High School in Utah.

A couple of Texas universities got more than $193,000 to study just how the Recovery Act is being received by the public.

Here’s a real jaw dropper: Hydrogen Energy California, a company owned by infamous oil giant BP, got $308 million to build a power plant that won’t break ground for another two years.

Remember all that talk about the extreme urgency needed in passing the Recovery Act to create jobs through “shovel ready” projects?

The Obama administration has insisted that the economy would be worse off without the stimulus package, and that may well be true. There are certainly worthy, job-creating projects in progress, too. But at the same  time, there were promises of accountability and transparency. Stupid, wasteful projects should be mercilessly weeded out, including the border improvement project right here in Montana.