Obama refuses to buy American again

As many Americans lose their homes and put up the house for a second mortgage, Hillary Clinton is spending $5.4 million to buy new crystal stemware for American embassies. But don't expect that money to help boost the American economy.

The contract was given to a tiny Washington, DC, interior designer, which in turn subcontracted the crystal work to a Swedish firm -- snubbing such US companies as the famous manufacturer in Clinton's own back yard, Steuben Crystal of upstate Corning.

The firm didn't even get a chance to bid on the contract, which will outfit embassies and ambassadors' residences with fancy crystal for ritzy functions.

Ironically, under the no-bid contract, some of the crystal is to be custom-crafted to include the seal of the United States, although Swedes will do all of the manufacturing.

This isn't the first time the Obama Administration has refused to buy American with taxpayer money. One of the many "green jobs" programs in the stimulus plan spent $2.1 million funding wind energy and the construction of new windmills. But 80% of the money went to foreign manufacturers and was thus lost to the American economy.

Finally: The stimulus creates lots of jobs!

Finally, after months of failure, the stimulus finally seems to be bringing down unemployment! Unemployment in other countries, that is.

Naturally, one of the largest programs in the Recovery Act funds renewable energy (progressive-speak for "windmills"). But there's just one problem, according to the Investigative Reporting Workshop:

"[M]ore than 80 percent of the first $1 billion in grants to wind energy companies went to foreign firms. Since then, the administration has stopped making announcements of new grants to wind, solar and geothermal companies, but has handed out another $1 billion, bringing the total given out to $2.1 billion and the total that went to companies based overseas to more than 79 percent.

In fact, the largest grant made under the program so far, a $178 million payment on Dec. 29, went to Babcock & Brown, a bankrupt Australian company that built a Texas wind farm using turbines made by a Japanese company."

Finally, outsourcing we can believe in. It's gotten so bad that a group of Democrat senators has sent a letter to Department of Treasury demanding that the program be halted until the government starts buying American. The effort is being led by Sen. Chuck Schumer. When even Chuck Schumer is bashing your spending program, you know it's a spectacular failure. Meanwhile the unemployment rate is still almost 10% and the national debt is still skyrocketing. So the stimulus has thus far spent money in imaginary zip codes and foreign countries. It's high time Obama got the program back on track and make sure its aid goes to all 57 states.