When President Obama introduced his economic stimulus, the main focus was to create jobs for our country as the economy cratered further into a recession.

The Recovery Act pumped over $787 billion into our economy and, by Obama’s own admission and job numbers from the Department of Labor, it failed.

There are many reasons for this failure, but a possible factor could ultimately be at the hands of taxpayers.

Cities across the country are using federal stimulus dollars from the Recovery Act — by loan of the taxpayers — to fund campaigns aimed at reducing obesity, but they are targeting American companies in the process.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, an agency under the Department of Health and Human Services, launched the anti-obesity program called Communities Putting Prevention to Work (CPPW) and has used hundreds of millions of dollars in Recovery Act funding to pay for the project.

The most blatant example of wasteful federal spending has occurred in New York City, where our tax dollars are being used to cripple American soda companies.

New York City received $31 million to launch “Pouring on the Pounds,” a program that features grotesque anti-obesity advertisements throughout the city.

One advertisement features a glob of human fat coming from a soda bottle into a glass asking, “Are you pouring on the pounds?” and then states “Don’t drink yourself fat.”

A video for the campaign states “Drinking 1 can of soda per day can make you 10 pounds fatter a year. Don’t drink yourself FAT.”

The science behind the claims seems to be shady, at best. In emails that were released to the public, the city’s health commissioner, Dr. Thomas A. Farley, displayed an obvious bias in the messaging of the ad campaign after overruling three of his expert staff members.

After being overruled by Farley, the city’s chief nutritionist called the idea of soda turning into fat “absurd.”

“What people fear is getting fat,” Farley wrote in his defense. He said the campaign needed to be graphic in order to motivate New Yorkers to change their habits.

But, all the wasteful spending of tax dollars intended for job creation has already claimed its first victims — American companies that are being targeted by the negative ads against their products.

Earlier this year, Pepsi Beverage Company in Baltimore was forced to stop its operations after a new city tax on soda was implemented.

The liberal war on soda companies has extended into 31 cities across the nation, and the strides being taken to highlight the negative effects of soda continue to become more bizarre than previously.

Just last month, federal officials rejected New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s proposal to prevent the city’s food stamp users from being allowed to buy soda with them.

We should all be outraged at the gross misuse of our tax dollars by liberals who are cutting jobs instead of creating them, and forcing businesses, whom the government relies on to create jobs, to close their doors just for the sake of progressive ideology.

With unemployment rates remaining high and stagnant, the fear of a double dip recession is again dominating conversations from Wall Street to main street America.

Our country’s financial uncertainty and polarized politics have been major issues for the past few weeks as the debt ceiling crisis developed into a political showdown.

A large contributor to the debt can be traced back to Obama’s failed stimulus and obvious disregard for real spending reform.

As a consequence, our credit rating was decreased by Standard & Poor’s, our stock market has still not recovered and world markets are now facing challenges, as well.

Because of all this uncertainty, it seems unimaginable that our tax dollars would be used to contribute to our country’s two most crippling issues — debt and unemployment.

Our government should use remaining federal stimulus money to invest in infrastructure, education and programs that benefit our communities without harming American companies and job creation.

Austin Gaddis is a junior majoring in public relations and communication studies. His column runs biweekly on Thursdays.