Georgia stimulus projects make list of 100 that "give taxpayers the blues"

By Jeremy Redmon

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Several projects in Georgia funded with federal stimulus dollars made a nationwide list of 100 endeavors that U.S. Sens. John McCain and Tom Coburn are questioning in a report released this month.

McCain and Coburn, both Republicans who voted against the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act last year, named their report “Summertime Blues: 100 stimulus projects that give taxpayers the blues.”

Their list includes Georgia Tech professors who received federal stimulus funds to understand how jazz, avant-garde art and Indian classical musicians improvise. The report cites an Atlanta Journal-Constitution article that describes the $762,372 study, which involves using brain imaging to learn how musicians do their work.

The researchers hope their project will help develop new technologies that support creativity in music, education and other areas.

“How will this help pull the United States out of an historic economic slump?” McCain and Coburn’s report asks.

Also making the senators’ list is another Georgia Tech project, also highlighted in the AJC article, that was granted $427,824 in stimulus funds for a study on elderly people playing video games, including the Wii Boom Blox game. The researcher hopes her work could help create guidelines for developing other "brain games" for seniors.

Georgia Tech issued a statement in response, saying such research is “necessary for the long-term economic success of our state and our nation.”

“Federal agencies funded research projects at Georgia Tech because they determined that the projects meet the appropriate criteria for stimulus funding,” Georgia Tech spokesman Matt Nagel said. “The fruits of this research are new industries and companies. For example, we are proud that our Center for Music Technology has already developed two new companies with this type of research."

The senators also highlighted a $677,462 research project at Georgia State University to study “why monkeys respond negatively to inequity and unfairness.” Asked about the project, the university sent the AJC a news release from last year that said the research “will hopefully answer questions about the evolution of responses to reward inequality -- including those responses in humans.”

Additionally, McCain and Coburn's report lists an $897,000 stimulus grant awarded to the Georgia Forestry Commission for tree planting. The commission's chief said the plantings are helping the environment and are expected to directly create 20 full-time jobs, plus other jobs in nurseries and related businesses.

“The economic and environmental benefits of Georgia Growing Green to the state offer a tremendous return on investment for all of us,” said Robert Farris, the commission’s director.

In their report, McCain and Coburn accused the economic spending program of boosting the national debt. And they point out that the nation’s unemployment rate of 9.5 percent is the same as it was a year ago, comparing June to June of last year.

Some economists and other experts, however, agree the spending has reduced the severity of the recession. White House officials, meanwhile, said the Georgia research projects singled out in the report were subjected to rigorous peer reviews by National Science Foundation panels. Regarding the tree-planting stimulus grant, the White House said it is supporting communities "devastated by the economic recession by providing green jobs and training to young adults.”

“This is yet another partisan political document from Senators McCain and Coburn that is full of false, misleading and misguided attacks on the Recovery Act,” said Elizabeth Oxhorn, a spokeswoman for the White House recovery office.