WHAT: Corporate giant General Electric dropped 18,000 U.S.-based employees in 2009, despite getting $24.9 million from U.S. taxpayers in the $787 billion economic “stimulus” law of February 2009. GE revenue was $156 billion in 2009.

HOW: GE was the primary recipient of 14 stimulus grants from four federal departments and was hired as a contractor on four additional grants. Meanwhile, it started 2009 with 152,000 U.S. workers and by year’s end it employed only 134,000.

WHY: The stimulus grants all went to GE’s Global Research Center. One Justice Department grant gave GE $999,955 “to develop a comprehensive reasoning system for event and scenario recognition for an intelligent video system.”