The "Bite Me" Stimulus Plan:

Your money went to "Bite Me".

“Bite Me”? That’s right, “Bite Me”!

“Bite Me” was an official part of the stimulus plan.

“Bit Me” is a large charter fishing boat based out of North Carolina that people rent to go on fishing excursions. You, the rest of the United States tax payers, and I (foreign audience may move along now – there is nothing to see – move along please) paid for ½ of its new diesel engine.

Why did we pay for ½ of its new diesel engine?

It was part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. You know, the stimulus plan.

How was this part of the stimulus plan?

The boats with their new engines would run more cleanly and be less polluting.

Is the coast of North Carolina known to be have coastal air pollutions problems?

Sometimes:

This is Myrtle Beach SC, but close enough

O.k., when there is are no forest fires going, is the coast of North Carolina known for its air pollution problems? 

Maybe not so much.  Of the State's 74 air sampling monitor sites, there is one sulfur dioxide monitor on the coast near Beaufort, NC, and an NO monitor at the Battleship North Carolina at Wilmington, NC.

So how did all of this happen?

Well I learned of the details at the hard copy of the

Carolina Journal, and an online version can be found at the Lincoln Tribune, but the outline of the story is like this:

1.      A Marina and diesel boat maintenance company’s owner, had a friend in Maine (just so you don’t think all the clever people are in NC).

   

2.      This friend tells him of a wonderful program to replace older marine diesel engines.

3. Our NC marina owner, gets hold of Marc Basnight, the (then) Democrat North Carolina Senate leader, and tells him of this wonderful program. Mr. Basnight, coincidentally was representing Dare County. Dare County is a coastal county.

4. The NC Department of Air Quality submits it as part of their “shovel ready” program, and $1.1 million is approved for the purpose.

The distrisution total for the program are as follows:

Boat	Owner	Home Port	Stimulus Grant
Bald Eagle II	Fisherman's Wharf Fillet, Inc.	Wanchese	$93,000
Bite Me	Bite Me Sportfishing	Hatteras	65,886
Drop-N-Back	Budd Gillam Adventures	Oregon Inlet	42,100
Miss Oregon Inlet	Oregon Inlet Fishing Center	Oregon Inlet	39,401
Offshore III	Harris Charter	Morehead City	37,500
Harper's Folly	Folly Sport Fishing	Hatteras	34,500
Endless Pursuit	Shepards Point Tours & Charters	Morehead City	32,960
Stolat	Stolat Fishing	Wanchese	32,000
Crystal Dawn	Crystal Dawn Corp.	Manteo	27,953
Gotta Bo	Thomas Edward Newman	Swan Quarter	27,500
Hopeful	Larry Gill	Engelhard	17,500
Shannon D	Dunn Fish	Buxton	16,372
Huckleberry	James Rollinson	Wanchese	14,000
Net Results	William Van Druten	Hatteras	9,040

What do these boats look like.  A typical fishing excursion vessel for hire might look like this:

Hatteras Fishing Boats (representative)

Well I cannot argue that it is stimulating. And one of the boat owners felt like they should get the money before some beurocrat wasted it (?). Very considerate of them to keep our money from being "wasted". At least it didn't go to any bankers.

Unless of course, one of the boat owners was a banker.