Ladies and Gentlemen; Start your Furnaces!

We got cash money to burn:

The (Minneapolis) City Council voted on Tuesday to spend the majority of its $3.6 million community development bonus under the federal stimulus act on the long-delayed Shubert Theater. Backers said the $2 million is the last piece of the $38 million they need to start construction as soon as this fall.

Oh, yea; it's not like the stimulus scam was supposed to, you know, revive the macro economy or anything.

The council approved the spending over the objections of Paul Ostrow, the lone council member to vote against the recommended projects. "This is frankly not a jobs project," Ostrow said.

Silly Ostrow - why is he trying to use logic in a place like the chambers of the Minneapolis City Council.

Ostrow read from federal stimulus regulations that forbid assistance to private recreational facilities that primarily serve an upper-income audience when that benefit outweighs jobs or other benefits to lower-income people.

Again, doesn't Ostrow know that the safe stewardship of taxpayers' money is nowhere near as important as making some horseshit "investment" that all the democrats can use in their reelection materials? Vote for me, I support the arts.

Yuck.

On top of all that, obvious candidate-for-governor & current Mayor RT Rybak has the GALL to whine about the current governor's cuts in aid to local governments.

Speaking of throwing money down a rathole:

Only two acts were scheduled this summer on the main stage of Burnsville's new $20 million Performing Arts Center. As of early this week, just one remains - a city-sponsored festival.

Aside from the $10-a-seat International Festival, the public calendar is blank for the remainder of the year at the main stage of the 1,014-seat Performing Arts Center, hailed at its January opening as the crown jewel of Burnsville's Heart of the City downtown redevelopment.

The Burnsville City Council commissioned a study in 2006 that showed in a worst-case scenario, the center would run at an annual shortfall of $300,000 for five years. But a preliminary city financial report obtained this week shows the center lost nearly $300,000 in the first three months of 2009. That would put the center on track to lose nearly $1.2 million this year.

All this in Minnesota, which has constitutional requirement to spent tax money on 'the arts.'