President Obama’s stimulus package helps build ‘Bridge to Microsoft’

Microsoft is one of the biggest and richest companies in the world. Its Chairman, one Bill Gates Esq., is a billionaire many times over, and right up there with the richest men on the planet. Its CEO, Steve Ballmer Esq., is also a multi-billionaire. So it’s clearly fitting that Microsoft is one of the first companies to benefit from President Obama’s stimulus package.

According to Bloomberg, Microsoft is among the first companies to be alloted money from Barack Obama’s stimulus package. The company is set to receive $11 million of the $214 allocated to the Puget Sound area for investment in roads and bridges. This is despite Microsoft having an estimated $20 billion in the bank.

The money will help pay for a new highway overpass connecting one part of Microsoft’s campus to the other in Redmond, Washington. The bill for the overpass will hit around $36.5 million, half of which will be paid for by the company, and the other half made up of the stimulus package money and other federal money.

Steve Ellis, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense didn’t hold back in his assessment of the allocation of this money. He dubbed the project a “bridge to Microsoft,” reusing his “bridge to nowhere” sound bite, which was used to describe the Alaskan project which made headlines during the Presidential election for Sarah Palin’s involvement.

Ellis said:

I’m sure Steve Ballmer or Bill Gates could finance this out of pocket change. Subsidizing an overpass to one of the richest companies in the country certainly isn’t going to be the best use of our precious dollars.

Microsoft defended the need for the bridge, detailing how it will ease congestion in the area as a whole. But that is unlikely to appease the thoughts of local residents, and people in the States as a whole, who want the $787 billion that makes up the stimulus package used for the most worthy projects. Helping a company which can clearly afford to pay for the work itself hardly seems a responsible use of the cash.

There is, of course, an argument that Microsoft is very important to the area, providing thousands of jobs and contributing greatly to the local economy. And while that may be true, there must be more suitable candidates for this money. If not, then it has to be asked whether the stimulus package was necessary in the first place?

• 

• Microsoft adds gene software to medical research package
• Steve Ballmer sells off Microsoft stock
• Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen leaving half his fortune to philanthropy on death
• Bill Gates joins Twitter, rejoins Facebook
• Microsoft names Steven Sinofsky President of Windows division