The following is an abstract for a white-paper TOC submitted to the RNC on the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.  The white paper investigates the so-called stimulus and challenges African-Americans to reconsider its relationship with the Democrat party considering the party is such a poor steward of taxpayer resources:

African-Americans and the $847 Billion Debacle

Author:  Hughey Newsome (Move-On-Up.org and theobjectivecitizen.com)

The purpose of the piece “African-Americans and The $840 Billion Debacle” is to illustrate that the wasteful spending in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 is actually an opportunity for the Republican Party to reach out to blacks and find common ground.  The piece starts by demonstrating that blacks are not at parity with other ethnic groups, and, because of that, blacks need to focus on closing those gaps (in wealth and education).  With the fiscal health of our nation, the paper argues that blacks should have a special interest in closing these gaps and reducing overall dependency on government that will eventually have to reduce its expenditures and cut redistributive spending.  Because blacks are disproportionately dependent, the only logical conclusion is that blacks must pay more attention to right-sizing of government, making sure every dollar government spends provides maximal value and more focus is placed on closing the aforementioned gaps blacks have instead of providing programs that allow blacks to adapt to these gaps.

After establishing this premise, the paper introduces the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act as an example of a value-destroying government program that did not achieve its goal.  The analysis starts with a thorough explanation of the size of the program with an attempt to scale it down to numbers that average Americans can appreciate.  The fact that no business case, an analysis any company would have to create for a large investment, seems to exist for the stimulus is also discussed.  The 8% unemployment target was reluctantly given by the administration, but little explanation was revealed as to how that figure was calculated.  From there, the paper begins to strike down myths about the program’s success.  It reveals how GDP began to grow again before the most significant spending started, hinting that GDP growth was not due to the stimulus, but instead to either confidence reestablished in the financial system via TARP or just cyclicality in the economy.  As further argument that the stimulus was not the cause of the recovery that we have seen since GDP began growing again in 2009, the analysis continues by revealing many of the sectors that received stimulus spending lagged the overall job market in terms of employment rate increase.  A stimulus is supposed to put money into productive sectors of the economy and have that money then flow to the other sectors.  If the stimulus worked, why do we not see this trend in the numbers?  Even more evidence can be found in the labor participation figures.  There has been virtually no recovery in labor participation since the recession started, so how can one argue that the stimulus worked if fewer people are in the labor market.

Once the lack of success of the stimulus is analyzed and presented, the paper presents an alternative approach of creating wealth and reducing unemployment.  It contrasts the way the private sector makes investment decisions and manages the resources of shareholders and investors to the way government manages taxpayer funds.  The conclusion that is drawn is that African-Americans should not want to continue to be disproportionately dependent on an institution that does so poorly managing resources.  It also concludes by challenging blacks to consider how much money was spent on pet projects versus how much money was spent to close gaps between African-Americans and other groups.  The only logical conclusion one could draw is that Republicans and African-Americans clearly have common ground.