The Stimulus Bill is already working! First stimulus hire is made in Ohio!

Evidence that the Stimulus Bill, just passed by Congress and not yet even signed by President Barack Obama, is already working comes from Ohio, where the first person has been hired as a result of the bill’s passage. Democratic Governor Ted Strickland has hired Sally Cooper to oversee Ohio’s fair share of the spending set aside in the nearly $800 billion bill. Cooper’s background seems ideal for her new job: The “Cleveland Plain Dealer” reports she “built a career largely in victim’s assistance and social service work. She most recently was the assistant director for the Institute for Human Services, a nonprofit state child welfare support agency, a position she held for 11 years.” I’m betting she can hold onto this new job just as long. The governor’s office said she’ll get paid “for as long as there is a need for her position.” Does anyone in the governor’s office thinkg that there will be, ever, no need for someone “directing the process” of getting federal money funneled from the rest of America to Ohio? Her salary: $99,000, and undoubtedly a bargain, given that Ohio, like 49 other states, hopes to reap billions in dollars that would otherwise be lent or spent by Americans on their own — Americans with no sense of the right spending priorities. One of those priorities (though astonishingly, apparently much reduced in the final bill) is for spreading the Gospel of Broadband. And once again, Ohio is in the forefront. Governor Strickland already has dispatched to Washington Tom Fritz, executive director of the non-profit “public-private partnership” Connect Ohio. His mission: “to maximize Ohio’s share of the $7.2 billion in the bill to extend broadband Internet access around the country,” according to the newspaper. The group’s announced goal is to “to accelerate technology in the state and close the digital divide,” according to its Website. “This stimulus money offers a great opportunity to do those projects that we’ve been working to identify and develop,” Fritz told the “Plain Dealer.”