When he signed the $787 billion "stimulus package" in February (officially:  the "American Recovery and Reinvestment Act"), President Barack Obama claimed the bill would be "putting Americans to work doing the work that America needs done in critical areas that have been neglected for too long –- work that will bring real and lasting change for generations to come.” 

Creating jobs never tasted so bad, because as the unemployment rate has soared to 9.5% since the passage of the stimulus bill (from around 8%), the government has succeeded in spending millions on ham and cheese.  According to  Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, the US government has used "stimulus" dollars to purchase 760 thousand pounds of ham ($1.19 million) and nearly 840 thousand pounds of mozzarella cheese ($1.56 million).  The government also bought an unknown amount of "canned pork" for $16.8 million.  Hmm.... "canned pork"?  Let's hope this doesn't mean the government has been confiscating our paychecks to buy Spam — I'd rather not think about what kind of "real and lasting change" that might bring to "generations to come".  At least it will the Monty Python song going strong.

Your money at work.