Interesting piece in Popular Mechanics that last night was briefly on Memeorandum and then disappeared into the ether about the value of shovel ready jobs and how they might actually make our current infrastructure problem worse:
The term arrived with all the muscle and blue-collar authority of a bulldozer: “shovel-ready.” As in, infrastructure projects that are ready or almost ready to begin, the antithesis of some dimly imagined earmark or budget-sucking bridge to nowhere. Then-president-elect Obama used the term on a December 7th visit to NBC’s Meet the Press, describing the kinds of projects that would be supported by the upcoming economic stimulus bill. Soon the phrase was being repeated by policy-makers only an almost daily basis. Now the bill is here, with one version passed by the House, and another being debated by the Senate. “Shovel-ready” isn’t language used in the bill, but the House’s version, at least, does have an enforceable short-term focus: Only projects that are able to start construction within 90 days of selection are eligible for funding from the $90 billion set aside for infrastructure.
The programs that would meet the bill’s 90-day restriction are, for the most part, an unappealing mix of projects that were either shelved after being fully designed and engineered, and have since become outmoded or irrelevant, or projects with limited scope and ambition. No one’s building a smart electric grid or revamping a water system on 90 days notice. The best example of a shovel-ready project, and what engineers believe could become the biggest recipient of the transportation-related portion of the bill’s funding, is road resurfacing—important maintenance work, but not a meaningful way to rein in a national infrastructure crisis. “In developing countries, there are roads that are so bad, they create congestion, because drivers are constantly forced to slow down,” says David Levinson, an associate professor in the University of Minnesota’s civil engineering department. “That’s not the case here. If the road’s a little bit rougher, drivers will feel it, but that’s not going to cause you to go any slower. So the economic benefit of those projects is pretty low.”
Read the whole thing.
One of my complaints about the stimulus bill is that there seems to be very little in it that iswhat I would call a “great public works.” From my ignorant perspective (and I mean that in every sense of the term- I need one of the economists mentioned in the story below, although I am smart enough to know what I don’t know), with the TARP bailout, we sort of just pissed make-believe money away to patch up financial holes. With the stimulus bill, I understand a good bit of money is going to help balance state budgets (If you look at this map, you will see that every state is allocated a sum of money to cover at least 10% of budget shortfalls, which could explain why Republican governors are more supportive of the current bill than the Republicans in congress), to provide unemployment benefits, medical benefits, and so on, but it would be nice that if for 900 billion we get something tangible and lasting. If I knew that the money was going to go to the reconstruction of bridges, high-speed rail, the power grid, or alternative and nuclear energy, I would be far more supportive.
Maybe some of that is in there, but the bill is named the “American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009,” and it would be nice if there was some comprehensive plan to provide something that will stimulate the economy in the short run but provide long-term benefits. There are tons of things I can think of above and beyond some road construction here and there. Why is this not happening?
wilfred
You have to know the history of the NRA of 1933, and all the problems associated with it, I think. There’s nothing new under the capitalist sun, including the name of this act.
The first one was declared unconsitutional and there is little doubt this one will be challenged if it steps over the invisible but well determined line that threatens real wealth and power.
Brick Oven Bill
My price to draw up the blanket designs to electrify the railroads has INCREASED! To twelve million dollars. And I will now need more time.
I will not provide them until Wednesday.
Samuel
Because this is not a stimulus bill. It’s an appropriations bill designed as a "stimulus" bill. If Obama is smart, he will tell the Congress to scrap this nonsense and start all over again, and come out with a bill that HE WANTS. But alas, the 2010 elections are on the horizon—so much for that.
Tim H.
Short answer: The money for that is in tax cuts instead.
cleek
the GOP sure is efficient in getting those talking points out!
Rainy
I was shocked that there was only 100 billion or so for infrastructure. Some else for the power grid. It should be at least half the cost of the bill to me.
Sarcastro
If the road’s a little bit rougher, drivers will feel it, but that’s not going to cause you to go any slower.
My city decided to save some money here recently by resurfacing the primary near my house with chipseal – gravel embedded in tar – rather than asphalt. Chipseal is actually a surface treatment, usually employed on tertiary mountain roads where traction is at a premium and traffic is light, rather than a true resurface so not only did it not improve the roadway’s dips and potholes it made the road rougher, thinner (loose gravel taking up about a foot of each shoulder) and far more harsh to drive on.
Road is marked as 40 MPH. Before the chipseal average speed was probably just over that, now the average speed is mid 30s at best. Not that it helps anything since the chipseal surface has a far higher rolling resistance than an asphalt surface: Uses more gas and wears tires out faster.
Plus it’s impossible to ride a bike on now!
Not that I disagree with this guys overall point, but a shit surface will slow traffic down. Plus I hate that damned road now and will take any opportunity to kvetch about it.
Napoleon
No $— John. The next person who makes this point I am going to kick in the junk.
The choice is between a stimulus plan with "lousy public works" or depression. The plans for anything that is a “great public works” died long ago because local governments don’t have the money and the feds are never interested, so those plans are not sitting on the shelf ready to go.
It really is that simple.
By the way, and I will post more later have a meeting, but there are several great examples of this here in Cleveland.
Rick Taylor
I doubt this is going to be the last bill on the matter. I hope not. If that’s the case, it makes sense for the first bill to address things that will help the economy quickest and to pass it as quickly as possible, and then we can have more time to address longer term projects. But unless most of the economists I’ve read are very much mistaken, this is not going to be a short term slump; we’ll need both a short term and a long term response. That’s why the politics of this is so important; if an emasculated version of this bill gets passed, and if it’s clear there isn’t support to do anything further, we are sunk.
Paul Krugman’s latest is worth reading.
numbskull
So John, you live in WV. What does Byrd’s office tell you when you ask them some of these questions?
zzyzx
Well when half of the cost has to go to tax cuts to avoid a filibuster…
The problem is the tradeoff between getting things in to fix the economy now and doing the planning to get good projects built. Remember that the Republicans are pushing back against the infrastructure spending because most of those projects won’t be built for another year or two so it’s not stimulus…
I have pretty much officially given up on trying to understand what the right move for the economy is…
cleek
the back of Jim DeMint’s head is shovel-ready
Tattoosydney
@Brick Oven Bill:
Will you be telling us how to capture Osama Bin Laden as well, Senator?
myiq2xu
Wasn’t there something called the "Big Shitpile?"
Punchy
shovel-ready in 90 days? Can archeys CAD this fast?
zzyzx
@myiq2xu: I believe it’s the nickname for the comments section at Riverdaughter.
Dave
John, I think the problem is that "great public works" take time. You can’t go headlong into fixing the national power grid or building wind turbines.
But we need to get that money in the system now before the deflationary spiral kicks in and we get well and truly fucked. So you have things like road-paving and bridge-mending; jobs that can be done quickly even it their long-term value isn’t as high as the larger projects.
Tattoosydney
I do like the surreal effect that the pie filter sometimes gives.
Brick Oven Bill
That is an extra one hundred billion dollars, Tattoosydney, and I will need an immunity clause, but we can talk.
Rick Taylor
It’s ironic because Republicans have been criticizing this bill for not getting money into the economy fast enough. It was actually designed to get money into the economy as quickly as possible, which sure makes sense given the circumstances. My understanding is, the people who wrote this bill basically went around and canvassed state governments and federal agencies and asked them, what can we spend money on, what do you have ready to go, and this is what they got.
So to sum up, the previous administration bequeathed us an economic emergency. According to Krugman, we are on the verge of falling into an "economic abyss." It would certainly be great to take time and plan out long range projects to improve our decrepit infrastructure. A pity we didn’t do that over the 16 years, when there was actually time for long range planning. Instead we had a Democratic administration responsibly reducing deficits and getting our financial house in order, and then a Republican administration piss it all away.
So now as we are frantically trying to avert or at least soften the catastrophe we have been bequeathed, the Republicans are shouting are stimulus won’t act quickly enough, and why isn’t there more money in it for infrastructure? Thanks. Don’t you guys have something important somewhere to do?
Libby
I’m as ignorant as you are John, probably more so, but from all I’ve read so far, the things like extending unemployment insurance and food stamps actually will work the fastest for short term stimulus and everything the GOPers are pushing for will drag the effectiveness, long term and short term, down.
Robert Reich made a very good case for acting immediately. I have to think he probably knows what he’s talking about.
Conservatively Liberal
Yes, you GoatBoy.
D-Chance.
@cleek:
Waaaah! Cole criticized the Democrats, it ain’t fair!
You’re so cute when you turn blue and fall on your back with your arms and legs flailing…
Rick Taylor
@myiq2xu:
That will be addressed in an upcoming bill.
Actually, that one is perhaps as important as this one; what are we going to do with the insolvent banks? I wish I was hearing more about this. I hope we’re not going to end up throwing hundreds of billions of dollars at them, and hoping they do what we want with it. The noises and leaks up to this point have not been good.
cleek
@myiq2xu:
that is significant!
Bob In Pacifica
Read Krugman. This bill is too little. But better than nothing. If nothing is done, expect ten more years of winter with breakouts of cannibalism throughout the world.
cleek
@D-Chance.: "Waaaah! Cole criticized the Democrats, it ain’t fair!"
what the fuck are you talking about?
Dave
The CBO has a chart showing the different kinds of stimulus and their effect on GDP
The two most effective methods are government purchase of goods and services, and giving state/local governments money for infrastructure.
And is it any surprise the two worst ideas are the GOP’s ?
sgwhiteinfla
You want the truth?
Its because if you want some infrastructure projects in this bill it will cause the CBO scoring to say that less than 75% of the money would be spent in the first two years. Why is that important? Because the Republicans, say it with me, AREN’T WORKING IN GOOD FAITH. We are going to be stuck with a less than adequate bill because in addition to trying to create a bill that will help out country, the President has to try to create a bill without elements that Republicans can use to score cheap political points and hold up the process.
I just saw on MSNBC a Rethug Senator being asked about the opposition to the stimulus bill and I think it was Contessa Brewer who pointed out to this Senator that what they were complaining about was less than one half of one percent of the bill. You know what his response was??? "Yeah but theres just SO MUCH OF THAT JUNK IN THE BILL" totally obvlivious to what she had just said. And of course SHE was oblivious to her own words as she never pointed out again to him after his answer that its LESS THAN ONE HALF OF ONE PERCENT OF THE BILL. If you had a bill and you liked more than 99.5 percent of the stuff on your plate would you throw the whole thing out because of the other less than .5 percent? HELL NO you wouldn’t. These aren’t honest brokers people and thats what’s fucking up the conversation.
SpotWeld
My thought about “grand public works” is that generally they become huge magnets for suck.
Anything that could represent a huge chunk of money going out to a specific geographical location and a nice big PR kiss on the lips is going to suffer from a case of "too many chefs".
It’s like a boondoggle military project. Representatives will try to get their names attached and lobbyists will try to get their (huge) chunk of the pie.
Eventually the project gets weight down with its own bulk and becomes a national level version of the Big Dig.
Smaller projects are boring and really just offset state level money so more targeted projects can be started (or just maintained).
Here in CT there’s a science center that’s going up in the downtown core of Hartford. It’s adjacent to our convention center and part of a long running project to revitalize the area. It’s a good idea, but the state needs to spend money on necessary road work that science center is going to get cut back. (It’ll open, but with fewer exhibits or less staff or fewer hours).
The science center brings in tourists (looking for cheap local trips) and also carries money over to the nearby local business. This "shovel ready" money will help our state balance its budget with less bleeding of state-funded jobs and projects.
We’ve just had 8 years of exciting (war, scandal, rapid market flux, lawyers shooting people in the face)… I want boring for a few years. Boring is stable!
El Cid
All of this is so obvious, which is why our establishment works so hard to ignore it.
If we retardedly miss this opportunity to transform the nation into something better than it was before because we want to make idiot fucktard supply-siders keep their boners and all we do is some piss-ant rebuilding and limp-along bullshit, we should all just be taken out and shot for cowardice.
I can imagine FDR and the New Dealers saying, "Well, now’s not the time to electrify the whole south; what we should focus on are projects to send spare parts to hospital generators; and we shouldn’t be establishing new public health programs, instead we need to keep current staffing for hookworm management."
Jeebus f***ing cripes.
Rick Taylor
From that same article of Krugman’s, explaining why there’s so much urgency for a stimulus that acts as quickly as possible:
Dave
The two most effective methods of stimulus as it positively effects GDP are government purchasing goods and services, and the transfer of monies to state/local government for infrastructure.
The two worst ideas? Tax-loss carrybacks and tax cuts for the wealthy. Is it any surprise that these are the big ideas the GOP has?
I tried to embed the CBO graph that has this info but BJ barfed when I tried it. Here’s the link
Zifnab
I’m sorry, but my state has – at any given times – half a dozen highway projects running at once. We’ve been cleaning up Hwy 59 and I-10 and I-45 and the 610 loop and Beltway 8 since the freak’n 80s.
The state has since moved from public roads to tollways (hate!), but that doesn’t mean large sums of tax money don’t still go towards state and federal highway projects. Pour a few billion dollars into the existing highway budget and the state can free up its funds for projects elsewhere.
The state has a laundry list of projects it would like to get done that are on hold or just waiting for funding and that are decidedly ambitious. But because it is tied down by the hand-to-mouth budget, it can’t realize them. A cash infusion – if properly spent – could jump start secondary projects that aren’t "shovel ready" because there will suddenly be state money projected into the budget two or five years down the line.
Lola
I read the broadband stuff is supposed to be very good in the bill.
Obama has said he will come out with a separate energy bill and I assume that is still in the works.
I am not an economist and I trust (at this point) his economists have more a sense of what is needed than I do. I do not trust that GOP congresscritters have any clue.
Dave
Deflation is the worst thing that could happen. Which is why we need to spend now.
You cannot spend enough right now. Paying people to dig and fill holes would be better than doing nothing right now.
Tim H.
In a world where there were no Republicans or Dinos, $100 billion would be allocated to prepare for a new economic base. You’d start by building a number of wind turbine factories, solar PV factories, possibly even nuke fabricators. You’d get a fair amount of jobs just training the people you’d need later.
You’d start building the factories for the DC equipment you’re going to need for the grid upgrade. You could get some low-tech construction jobs by upgrading reservoirs. You’re going to need them for power storage.
Why we’re not doing this, is all of the above would hurt the profits of existing concerns.
Laura W
A lot of what he says and writes is probably Econ 101 for many of you, but I so appreciate the clarity and precision with which he expresses his opinions.
Even I can follow him.
cleek
it’s not all about giving Obama a black eye (though that’s a plus).
it’s trivially easy to find conservative pundits who say we need a recession. and, assuming they represent a decent percentage of mainstream conservative thought, it’s easy to see why the GOP is playing games here – they simply don’t want Obama’s stimulus to pass because they don’t think we need to avoid the recession. in fact, they think a recession will be good for us.
i know i was defending Obama’s attempts to negotiate with the GOP, a couple of weeks back. but i don’t know how anyone who thinks we should avoid a recession can negotiate with who thinks we should embrace it. there’s really no middle ground there. my mistake was in not realizing that there are people who relish the idea of a good cleansing recession…
Zifnab
@SpotWeld:
Hoover Dam. Transcontinental Railroad. The National Parks. Medicare. Social Security. The Tennessee Valley Authority. The Interstate Highway System.
Some people see the bedrock of the American Economy. Some people see "huge magnets for suck". Tomaytoe, Tomahtoe.
Punchy
I had no idea John was in the military long enough to have a bombed-out ship named after him….
ChrisNBama
The thinking on this, at least at first blush, is to sprinkle a little money across a large infrastructure spectrum, then evaluate over time where the biggest bang for the buck is coming. Then a secondary appropriations action will be made continue to fund those projects to completion. This stimulus is really just a down payment for further action in the future. It’s not a one time only deal.
Stuck
@Rainy:
Same here. Maybe that was the cost of mollifying wingnuts by putting in nearly 300 bil for more tax cuts. But this bill seems largely built on the theory that the government spending money stimulates the economy versus the GOP all purpose theory that tax cuts are the only way to do that. The GOP theory has not only failed for the past eight years, but almost certainly caused the severity of the problem by structurally altering the economic model.
History has largely credited government spending with at least stabilizing the slide during the Great Depression, which is why we now have non-stop wingnut history re-writing going on. I say take out the tax cuts that won’t mollify wingers anyway, since it’s not 100 percent tax cuts, and spend it on shovel ready and other infrastructure projects.
Wingnuts are not part of the solution, they are the problem, and letting their failed dogma get a foothold in the debate was the first mistake of dems. Lots of duck tape and instructions for sealing their lying pieholes seems the best strategy to me. Call a vote and let them block the efforts of a new president with a solid 65% approval.
Englischlehrer
ok, now that’s 3 posts in a row where you say "read the whole thing". We come to your website so we don’t have to! :)
JanglerNPL
Maddeningly, two of the projects on the $100-some-odd-billion list of cuts promulgated by Collins and Nelson are broadband and energy efficiency programs. These are what the Republicans call "waste". The Constitution says the government should build roads, so that’s OK by them, but oddly enough it doesn’t mention broadband lines.
Dave
The two most effective methods of stimulating the economy (in regards to increasing GDP) are government purchases of goods and services and transfers of monies to state/local government.
The two least effective methods are tax-loss carrybacks for businesses and tax cuts for the wealthy. And if those sound familiar it is because they are the cornerstones of the GOP proposals.
There is a CBO graphic that shows this. I tried to embed twice and BJ threw up. So I am just going to include the link as text:
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/__fmrosFG7fs/SYvB8g-43UI/AAAAAAAAA90/nQrMf3f4wr4/s400/cbo.png
Media Browski
John,
This is only round one. If you think that this slap-dash two-week stim bill is the end, especially for the electric industry, you need to reread the history of the Great Depression.
Love ya, but really, quit yer whining!
Dave
The two most effective methods of stimulating the economy (in regards to increasing GDP) are government purchases of goods and services and transfers of monies to state/local government.
The two least effective methods are tax-loss carrybacks for businesses and tax cuts for the wealthy. And if those sound familiar it is because they are the cornerstones of the GOP proposals.
There is a CBO graphic that shows this. I tried to embed twice and BJ threw up.
flounder
I was in Canyon DeChelly National Monument this week. Bad roads, handrails falling over. Beer bottles and garbage lining the roads. I think we could spend most of this money just fixing up Federal property (Canyon DeChelly is actually Navajo Reservation land, but Yellowstone was in the same condition when I was last there).
Weatherizing some of the junky old Federal buildings would have the added benefit of saving us money on utility bills in the future. I imagine a lot of the buildings were actually built during the Great Depression, I’ve heard there has been a few advances in energy efficiency since then.
John Cole
I am really not trying to whine, and if I am, I apologize. I just don’t understand what is going on, and I think the Democrats are doing their usual crappy job of explaining their side of the story.
I know where the Republicans stand and why. It is loud and clear. Every time I turn on my tv, they are there.
Why do I not know what the Democratic position is? Why is there not a website that goes through and, for every item in the stimulus bill over say 10 million dollars, tells us where the money is going, why it is stimulative, how the money will be spent, what jobs will be created, when it will be spent, why it is a good thing, and why the Republican claims about it are bullshit. Don’t the Democrats have interns and staffers?
El Cid
One thing we shouldn’t assume is that everybody wants our nation prepared for a future better economy where our majority has a shot at better jobs and a rising economic status.
You and I may see that as a basic aspect of running our nation for the benefit of our brothers & sisters, while there are a lot of people, including a lot of powerful people, who see that as creating the problem of all those uppity well-functioning citizens in the future, instead of more pliable desperate peons.
I’m not kidding, either. You shouldn’t assume that everyone actually shares in the interest for most Americans to do better in the long run. Many people don’t.
Now, maybe only a few want the USA to become more of a 1970s Brazilian junta style system with the rich in their own economy and the rest just scrabbling in shanty towns. There certainly are people who want that.
But there are a lot more people who see bettering the majority as some sort of dangerous precedent to weaken their own power and privilege in the future.
It’s not a "mistake" when people like Greenspan make it their highest policy priority to avoid letting "wage hikes" share the productivity increases which instead went to useless financialized profit and the thieves of the imaginary investment industry.
People like that detest you and me, they despise us, and the very thought of a strong and successful middle and working class not desperate for crumbs disgusts them.
Dave
Here’s an idea for a sure moneymaker for the gov’t; build a high-speed rail line between L.A. and Vegas. Not only do you get the stimulative effect of building the damn thing, but it’d be one Amtrak line that would be sure to turn a profit.
Fwiffo
What Dave Said.
My guess is that the "great public works" are coming in round two. This is just to get a huge ass pile of money circulating in the economy, and it doesn’t really matter how it gets there so long as it’s spent right away. It doesn’t matter if all you do is pay people to re-sod the Mall, they’ll have jobs and money to spend.
It’s the old story of getting shot on the way to the hospital where you were going to get treatment for cancer.
This bill is trying to patch up the gunshot wound, the next one will try to work on the cancer.
Dave
@El Cid:
10 years ago I would have laughed at what you just said.
Now…now it’s just blazingly obviously I would have been wrong. You cannot negotiate in good faith with the current GOP. It just isn’t possible.
Media Browski
@John Cole: Unfortunately Dems often work under the assumption that everyone has a good 4-year college degree, isn’t perverse, and actually understand why this needs to happen.
But that’s ok, because, AS USUAL, just when the blogosphere starts asking "WTF IS OBAMA DOING? HE’S GOING TO KILL US ALL!" The One starts in on his communications campaign. His style/strategy is simple, and effective: let everyone else stake out their positions, become WEDDED to their ideas, and then he starts taking them apart.
Laura W
Time after time after time after time.
Rick Taylor
@John Cole:
Steve Benen made a very similar point a little while back; unfortunately I can’t find it now. But he said almost anywhere you look in the stimulus bill, there are projects that would employ people in concrete ways in communities throughout the country, and why weren’t they pointing them out?
The Democrats dropped the ball on this one. It’s not necessarily a fatal error, but they went as though they were going to negotiate with the Republicans, as opposed to preparing a battle to win hearts and minds.
Here’s a link to something related, though not the one I remember.
ChrisNBama
This is a piece of legislation, not a project management tree. The bill is only an allocation of funds for a particular purpose. Once passed, then those groups responsible for that allocation draw up business plans with what to do with that money, then it’s acted upon. It is beyond the scope of the legislative function to provide the level of detail you request. I don’t know of any spending bill that gives that level of detail.
Stuck
And this doesn’t help with selling the public on sending tax money to rescue the business sector.
TARP Taxpayer Appropriated Recreational Poking
garyb50
How about this? Scrap all of it & just divvy up the 900 billion equally & send us each a check. $3000. That way, I could pay my taxes April 15th.
Conservatively Liberal
@El Cid:
Excellent writeup El Cid and I agree. One thing I would change is where you said:
I would append to that:
Many of those who don’t want all Americans to do better have a lot of money to spend to make sure it never happens. They are paying off your representatives to ensure it doesn’t.
Our government is the best that money can buy and the ones with the money have bought it and own it. All we have to do is keep making the payments.
Or else.
Rick Taylor
Just to add, being a good wonk, and being a good communicator are separate skills. It’s rare you find people who can do both. In an environment where one side is completely clueless and not above making things up, that’s a problem.
Josh Hueco
What El Cid and Dave said. Living in Texas for more than six weeks will convince any sane person of the folly, failure, and wickedness of conservatism.
Cain
@Fwiffo:
I think that’s what John’s complaint is. Why are we all guessing? What is the overall plan? Obama has said that public works will give us more jobs and it should be part of the stimulus bill or another bill but a link somewhere where he states this would be appreciated.
cain
sgwhiteinfla
John Cole
I think this is what you are looking for
http://www.whitehouse.gov/assets/documents/White_House_Releases_Additional_State1.pdf
The only problem is you can’t fit a 100 page pdf into a 10 second soundbite.
William Ockham
This post is completely wrong because the assumption is wrong:
There are projects all over the country that are ready to go and lack only funding and/or the final round of bureacratic rubber stamps. In my hometown, we’ve got a light rail line that is pretty useless because it is a single line between downtown and the medical center. The stimulus bill could pay for completing the line from the airport to downtown and the line from downtown to the western suburbs that suffer from the worst traffic congestion in the country. Or we could give businesses some tax cuts that will be useless to them this year because they won’t make any money and hamstring our government for years to come.
Dave
@Stuck:
I think it’s time that the Feds just stepped in and took one of the big banks over lock, stock and barrel. Make Bank of America the Bank of AMERICA and then use it to buy up, carve up and sell off all these other banks that are on the verge of collapse.
Tattoosydney
@cleek:
At least Senator Collins is saying things like this, whether you believe her or not:
While I agree there is no middle ground with the McConnells and Conyers, I don’t think Obama’s "bipartisanship" is aimed at them. I suspect he knows they are incapable of anything but mindless opposition.
His real focus is the ten or so Republican Senators who appear to have a brain – who I (naively perhaps) suspect are occasionally looking at the other members of their own party with the same horror I am.
I like Nate’s neat graphic which lets you draw a line between "republican with at least an intact brain stem" and "dribbling moron".
El Cid
Another point: Have some more respect for yourselves. Raising legitimate points and dissents before what appears to be dangerous idiocy happens isn’t just blog panic; and Obama isn’t just magically above the fray waiting to impose his master strategy.
Among the people Obama learns from, on the campaign and now as Preznit, is us.
We peons out here, whether it be via calls, letters, blogs, whatever, we raise good points. If Obama seems to start off in one fashion and then later does something masterful to pull it together, why is the universal assumption that he would have done so without tremendous amounts of vigorous and smart debate among the non-establishment?
There’s a reason Obama was famed for checking into what popular debates were saying — he realized that there were a ton of smart and concerned citizens out there whose insights could help him.
Keep up the blogworld freakouts. Be sane about it, but don’t ever sit on your ass with hopeful thoughts that wizard-master Obama will just pull magic solutions out if we’re all just patient enough.
JL
Mark Zandi was on Bloomberg News and made a few interesting comments. He thinks that the stimulus has to be passed quickly in order to stabilize the job market. If they don’t respond quickly then jobs won’t stabilize this year. He thinks debating is good but he’s hopeful that they get the package together in the next week or two. He said that repubs who say give it time to think it through is a wrong analysis. The program has been thought through. The transition team and congress have been working on it. The economy needs help quickly.
Dave
@Tattoosydney:
I think Collins will vote for it in the end because her state will demand it. Maine needs some of these funds to close the budget gap. Plus, we aren’t exactly a red state.
But every time I read something she says I curse Tom Allen for running one of the worst campaigns in political history.
Napoleon
Here is a great example of a project that absolutely is needed but is not in the stimulus plan because the estimate is that if they give it the go now it will be 2 years before they get in the ground, and that is replacement of Cleveland’s Interbelt Bridge.
It is a huge bridge that is absolutely vital to this region with 150,000 vehicles a day using it, and as part of I-90 and I-71 a huge interstate link.
That is the problem with the stimulus package, there are great projects that need to be done, but getting them to the point that you can do them today will take a little time that we do not have.
Tattoosydney
@Media Browski:
This.
Edit:
And This:
TheHatOnMyCat
I posted this to an adjacent thread but it might do better here.
–//
I can’t comment on your misgivings. I have a hunch that more research would address them, or most of them.
I can only comment on my own impressions of what we are doing here. One, I am not eager to recreate the Great Depression and do "public works" following that model. That was a different world, and I don’t think trying to recreate it is a good idea. We don’t need massive public works, the infrastructure is already there and improving it is not the same as creating it. In other words, we don’t really need to build a lot of roads, or dams. We do need to improve the condition of existing roads and bridges.
But the thing is, we can’t get to stopping a depression by fixing bridges and schools. There aren’t enough of them, the types of jobs aren’t the ones we need to emphasize, the projects aren’t quick turnarounds, etc.
I haven’t studied the details of this Senate bill, there hasn’t been time. If the debate is whether we need to take time for ordinary people to digest it all, versus get a good but not perfect bill passed and signed, I am in favor of the latter, and if that makes us a little nervous, so be it.
Bottom line for Juicers? Nut up, support the bill, and let’s move forward.
Stuck
@Dave:
I’ve been saying that all along. They need a knot jerked in their asses. And their culture is so decadent with short term greed, it will be the only way make the needed changes IMO.
wilfred
If I had a project
I’d pitch it on the news shows
I’d sell it on the airwaves
all over Homeland
I’d wank about job loss
I’d wank about dis-tress
I’d wank about heaps of
cash, a-shootin’ about my ass
all over
Homeland
Tim H.
A lot of people, possibly Cole himself, do not believe there may be a later.
Buiter
This dude is against the stimulus because he believes the U.S. has devolved into such a banana republic that we’re going to do it wrong, and we’re only going to get one shot at borrowing that much money. We have to convince the rest of the world that what we’re doing now will revive the economy (so we can pay back the money) or we’re boned.
Gotta Ask Why
John Cole,
You make some substantive points, but in a nutshell, this stimul bill is really intended to serve multiple masters. Our economy needs, solvency, stability and growth. Right now a fair number of our banks are insolvent. And because they’re not lending, a fair number of business are struggling to maintain operations. Rightly so, those businesses, individuals and our state and local governments are refusing to let go of the cash in their hands out of fear of a prolonged downturn. The poorly designed TARP is trying to address the issues with the credit market, but a good part of the stimulus bill is attempting to bypass the gridlock of the credit markets and get money into the hands of people and businesses to allow them to operate under conditions other than fear.
A second part of the stimulus package is to get more money into circulation (again bypassing the credit gridlock) but with the goal of at least getting some needed improvements that have longer-term benefits. That’s why, in addition to being the pet projects of various legislators, things like HIV / STD prevention, National Park maintenance and other things seen as "pork" have been added to the bill. The facts are that these projects can start quickly, and will still create scenarios where workers will need to be hired (or at least not fired) and supplies will have to be bought. Plus they do have the added benefit of keeping the patients and clients of these facilities out of the ER where the costs to treat them are exorbitant.
The last part of the stimulus is the part that we’re all excited about. The part where hi-speed rail, green energy investment, school improvements, and medical technology now finally receive there prop’s. Well the fact is that for 30 years we’ve dismantled the very apparatus that would enable us to actually do those things. We haven’t been planning hi-speed rail, we haven’t made any substantial investments in standardizing medical records we haven’t been investing in building schools. For 30 years we’ve simply outsourced those responsibilities and now that we need to get those types of projects started, we’re just not ready.
Unfortunately, the U.S. has put itself into a position where we need to spend a lot of money right now yet we haven’t been planning to build anything "tangible and long lasting" for a long time now. Think about it. It’s been how many years since Katrina and the Army Corps of Engineers is still solidifying the levees with dirt and concrete rather than building a real levee system that will solve the problem. I listen to the complaints about the stimulus bill and I think we all are frustrated with the realization that we have underestimated the scale and scope of the damage that the GOP has created through their neglect of everything having to do with the "public good."
Please don’t take this as a rebuttal of your positions because I agree with you. But the facts are that the types of projects we want are typically undertaken by governments because their scale and low profit margins are not incentives for private business to get involved. The fact that the last of the big projects that our government has undertaken, took place 50 years ago (highways), is a testament to how little expertise and planning is available to get these things started immediate.
Samuel
It’s obvious that the Democrats are terrified about having to vote on this bill alone. There’s no sense that they believe it works.
I think the American people are tired of their leaders telling us to do what they want otherwise their will be mushroom clouds, tanking financial markets and economic calamities.
The TARP brought us the tanking financial markets and we’re staring a recession right in the face. Although at 7.5% unemployment, we’re not in a Great Depression.
The root of this mess is the financial system and the housing crisis. They need to focus on these issues, not paying Google billions to build up rural broadband, or for funding planned parenthood, or building aquariums.
Stuck
The rest of the world is so intertwined and dependent on our economic good fortune, they have no choice but to along, or go down with us.
Napoleon
So are you saying the engineering work for the new line, environmental and geotechnical reports are done and the right of way for the project have been acquired, so that it is shovel ready, or do you mean that they have talking about it for a while and holding meetings where they wheel out pretty renderings of what it will look like, because if it is the second, including it in the stimulius package will do us no good.
DanF
Extended unemployment benefits to at least a year (welfare checks are a form of stimulus after all), then push the "shovel-ready" deadline to 9 months. There are aspects to very big jobs that can be started within nine months even if all of the details aren’t fully realized.
Zifnab
There are no earmarks. This money is going straight to state and federal bureaucracy coffers as far as I can tell. I don’t think they can honestly say where the money is going.
That said, I wouldn’t mind seeing the bill renamed the "Minnesota Bridge Collapse Prevention Act of 2009" just to kinda set the message home.
Tim H.
I can speak for Buffalo. There is a subway line built decades ago which only runs from downtown to the ex SUNY campus. It was originally meant to run a lot further (to the airport) but they ran out of money. It wouldn’t be shovel ready, but the engineering and designs still exist.
JL
Unfortunately, in order to stop the job loss, projects have to be shovel ready. The deficit grows because of unemployment growth and that bleeding needs to stop. Biden has been working with LaHood to come up with longer term goals to solve transportation problems. (fingers crossed that they go for a high speed train.)
Tattoosydney
@El Cid:
@Tattoosydney:
That’s the joy of what appears to be Obama’s strategy. Throw out a position that is 30% above what you want. Let everyone argue, while you sit back in the Oval Office reading aides’ summaries of calls, letters, blogs (as well as the MSM (with that section carefully labelled "Disregard – Morons")). Give huge speech that binds all of the opinions of the non-28%ers together and also reminds everyone who is the President, motherfuckers. Get 110% of what you want. In the mean time, while everyone is distracted, start fixing SCHIP, sign Lilly Leadbetter Act…
Repeat.
I don’t think it will always work, but I suspect there is another strategy waiting in the magic ringbinders for when that one stops being as effective.
Ps: I love that link. "and then there are ignorant motherfuckers like you…" Hee.
Dave
@Samuel:
It’s past housing now. Focusing on that was the right move six months to a year ago. Now the infection is in the whole system. And it takes jobs like building aquariums to get money into the system.
That job alone creates jobs not only in building the facility but staffing it. It creates demand for building materials in numerous industries. It creates demand for food. It brings in tourists that contribute to the local tax base.
That isn’t a waste of money.
Josh Hueco
@(goat)Slammin’ Sammie:
And how do you suggest we should go about fixing the finance and housing mess, genius?
Zifnab
@Samuel:
Yeah, we figured that out in Nov ’06 and ’08. That said, when over half a million jobs go missing every month, it’s a little less abstract than "Gee, I hope the smoking gun doesn’t become a mushroom cloud". People are out on the street. They are tired of being referred to as a "nation of whiners" and would like their government to stop dragging its heels and do its job.
TheHatOnMyCat
The world is being boned as we speak.
The world is watching to see that we have the stones to do something. The world’s nations are figuring out their own recovery strategies.
The world is not too worried about the US walking away from its financial obligations, do you think? If the US renegs, then the entire world has already gone into the tank and our failure is not going to matter that much.
Ronzoni Rigatoni
The WPA built things to last. In my own home town the elementary and high school buildings were so solid they could withstand a nuclear attack I found another in Ft. Lauderdale, the Customhouse. Such buildings are everywhere. Look around. There’s usually a plaque somewhere on the building attesting to its WPA origins.
Gov’t infrastructure spending at its best.
Dave
@TheHatOnMyCat:
It’ll be interesting to see how the EU responds. I have always felt that long-term it was impossible for them to maintain a single currency without a genuine political union. What will happen now when some member countries get shellacked by their decisions?
Stuck
Jeevus. I can’t stand much more of this. John Mccain is on the Senate floor giving the epic wingnut whine about how they’re not 50-50 partners in writing this bill, so they’re going to take their ball and go home. After there have been umpteen amendments offered by the GOP the last couple of days, that have been promptly defeated by democratic processes. John Fucking Mccain. Failed presnit candidate and now WATB.
Republicans royally suck.
Numnut quote of the day. Mccain just said "dems saying we won and so we get to write the bill, That’s not bipartisanship my friends".
El Cid
By the way, for what it’s worth, the Chinese build better, longer lasting roads than we do, like some European nations, because they are willing to spend more in initial construction than our wasteful, short-sighted leaders.
Bill H
"It needs to be big, it needs to be targeted, and it needs to be temporary." I don’t recall who said that, but it seems to have become accepted as conventional wisdom. This bill meets two of those criteria, but how in the hell is this thing "targeted"?
I’m not saying this should not pass, or that any part of it is bad, or that all of it is. But when I look at it as a whole I get the impression that we are trying to kill an elephant with a shotgun loaded with birdshot.
This is small thinking writ large. Where is the "big thinking" in this nation any more? I can’t imagine what today’s leaders would come up with for a Declaration of Independence.
"We think everybody was born at some time, and that when they grow up they should have a pot to piss in and twelve cents. Except the ones that don’t manage to grow up. Oh well. But anyway, fuck the King"
El Cid
@Bill H: So awesome. I’m sending the "Centrist-GOP consensus on the Declaration of Independence" everywhere.
Actually, let me correct that. They’d never, in a million years, say "F*** the King." I’d be surprised if our Centrist-GOP consensus would ever even come to a decision so partisan as to declare independence at all. Maybe it would be a "Dependence Reduction and Colonial Efficiency Improvement Act."
Rick Taylor
@Tattoosydney:
The number of Republican senators with a brain is at most five. That’s the number who voted against an alternate stimulus plan that acted entirely through tax cuts, including capital gains, the inheritance tax, etc.
I suspect sadly, Obama also has to keep in mind the blue dog Democrats.
Media Browski
@Tattoosydney: What?
Rick Taylor
@Bill H:
This is akin to being on the titanic as it’s going down, plunging into icy waters, and people are running around, scrambling for the life boats, getting off anyway they can, and grumbling, "What a scattershot approach! Where’s the big thinking that made America shipping great? We should be passing a bill to change the whole way we think of life preservers and evacuating a sinking ship!"
Libby
@John Cole: I’m with you there John. The Dems suck at messaging. And apparently they’ve been cowering before the GOPers for so long they don’t remember how to stand up and fight, even when they have the big guns and the GOPers only have pea shooters.
Tattoosydney
@Rick Taylor:
I agree with you, mostly, but I like Giordano’s comment:
Tattoosydney
@Media Browski:
Trans: I agree with you, but also with El Cid.
bvac
Cleaning up roads and doing repairwork on some bridges can only go so far. Obama needs to have something huge in this bill. A highspeed rail network going from south america, through mexico, up through alaska, and over the bering strait to russia. A modern powergrid to carry electricity from powerplants in the mid-west to the northeast. A massive water works project to prevent the west from turning to dust. These kinds of things would ‘stimulate’ the economy by putting steel, auto, construction, and high-tech back to work for years, and would have the lasting effect of increasing trade.
If they had stuff like this in the bill, all of GOP bellyaching about weatherizing homes, buying a green fleet et c. would seem a lot more insignificant than it already is. If people could look at the bill and see how ambitious the goals are, then they’d think back to all of Obamas campaign speeches, and Republicans would be toast.
The only problem is how the hell could they introduce something like this now, after weeks of dangling a pre-written catch-all bill in front of everyones faces? The politics of it would be distracting, but at this point I’m all for getting it right than making it look good on TV.
CalD
Dwight Eisenhower created the interstate highway system to better move troops and armor around the country, against the day the Russians invaded. Cold war atomic bomb and missile research created DARPAnet (which Al Gore’s Telecommunications act of 1996 subsequently turned into the internets). Ronald Reagan catalyzed silicone valley with the SDI ("Star Wars") program… The lesson would seem to be that if you want to sell a trillion-dollar spending program for long-term infrastructural development to the American public, you just have to make it sound lethal somehow.
Rick Taylor
@Tattoosydney:
And I agree with you, there may be a point to Obama’s outreach that we’ll only see in the long term. But I think he could have reached out and at the same time done a better job early building support for the bill and pre-empting the Republican’s message that was sure to follow. But then one thing I’ve liked very much about Obama is while like all politicians he makes mistakes, he’s much better than most at recognizing and responding to them. We’re hearing more from him recently, and I expect that’s only going to improve.
Dave
@CalD:
I think you have the gist of it. It reminds me of the Family Guy episode where Lois is elected mayor and wants to clean the lake:
Lois: And I think we all realize the importance of stopping
the environmental damage being done to Lake Quahog,
which is why I’m proposing a very modest tax increase that will help us to…
Man In Crowd: No, no, no, that’s awful. No, no, no, I’m not okay with that.
Crowd (All): No new taxes! No new taxes! No new taxes! No new taxes!
Lois: But what about the terrorists? That’s right, terrorists.
We have intelligence that suggests that…Hitler is plotting with…with the Legion of Doom…to assassinate Jesus…using the lake as a base. And we also have evidence that…Darth Vader tried to buy yellowcake uranium…from unwed teenage mothers.
Man In Crowd: Those things all sound scary. How much money before I can feel safe again?
Rome Again
I have a proposition for you. Shall we do lunch and talk about how to support it and move forward?
Tattoosydney
@Rick Taylor:
If we keep agreeing with each other it’s going to get boring.
Yes. I think he got the "reach out" bit right. I think he got the "the 28%ers are going to freak and we can use that" bit right.
I agree with you (and John) that the "explain to the other 72% why this is a good idea" bit should have been done earlier and more often – especially as it would make the wingnut freakout even more obvious.
Montysano (All Hail Marx & Lennon)
@Libby:
Here’s my question: is Tweety begging Dems to come on the show, but they won’t ’cause they have dinner reservations? Or are the Dems being excluded by teh Villagers?
BO delivered an awesome speech last night……. on CSPAN. Maybe 80 of us saw it. Meanwhile, was Morning Joe doing an in-depth analysis of the speech this morning, or was he engaging in yet more wankery?
And WTF……. the stock market is up this AM?
Media Browski
@Tattoosydney: Ah, Bach!
Yeah, he’s got the other end of the "range of reasonableness." I certainly don’t expect The One to turn water into wine, especially without public support to act as cover fire, but I’m also very impressed with his political skills.
He is Full of Win.
Rome Again
Not true, CNN delivered it (while MSNBC did not) and it has been youtubed. Many more than 80 people have seen it, including me, and I didn’t watch C Span after about 10am yesterday morning.
Laura W
@Montysano (All Hail Marx & Lennon): Yet more wankery.
Putting Krugman in his place, fer sure.
("Obama about to unveil economic advisory board" on MSNBC. Of course, he’s been "about to" do so since 11am EST.)
Montysano (All Hail Marx & Lennon)
@Rome Again:
I realize that, Rome; I was being hyperbolic. My point/question: do the Dems just suck at messaging, or are they being thwarted by the Villagers? Some of both, I suspect.
El Cid
@ Rick
Maybe it’s like those people evacuating the Titanic trying to assure the frightened and hopeless likely survivors that upon plunging into the few lifeboats, some other craft would be there soon to rescue them, rather than just pushing off into the icy dark waters alone for who knows how long, and good luck with that.
Yes, it may not be as urgently necessary as getting them in the lifeboats, but it was pretty important.
And had there been no other ships coming to rescue them, they would likely have died too.
georgia pig
This is probably the start of a long hard slog, grinding trench warfare. No-one really knows what the economy will do. I remember Krugman talking about the Asian crisis in ’97 and remarking that the economists really don’t know why it stopped. So much of this is perception and reflexivity (read Soros). Things could turn around, or we may go through a realigning event like the Great Depression. The stimulus bill has at least some chance of ameliorating effects over the next year, but there will likely need to be bigger things to follow.
It seems like Obama is taking incremental steps to try to engage the public in what amounts to a big Socratic dialogue about how to view the state we find ourselves in. We’re just not used to politics being done that way. The stimulus hubbub gives him the opportunity to expose some inoperative underlying assumptions that have seeped into the public consciousness over the last couple of decades of Reagan-inspired knownothingism.
He offered bipartisanship to the Republicans because it would have been nice if they had cooperated (it would have saved a lot of pain and time). But he had to know they probably wouldn’t take it, he’s been in the Senate long enough to know what to expect. Their expected reaction was to try to win an argument, exactly the "old Washington way" that he campaigned about. The Village went along because that’s also the only thing they know how to do, idiots like Anderson Cooper acting all concern-trolly about "what is happening to Obama’s presidency?" etc.
Look at some of the nonsense that the Republicans have been trotting out, e.g., "this is a spending bill, not a stimulus", "it won’t create any jobs", "tax cuts will cure anything." They don’t have any other game, and now they’re arguing with a guy who’s smarter than them, at least if you believe the results of the last election. Faced with a real crisis, the public now has the opportunity to really get a window on the intellectual bankruptcy of the current crop of Republicans in DC. Obama can’t make the public get a clue, but the message he’s putting across to them is "I think there is ample evidence that these guys are not as serious and smart as they made themselves out to be (hell, they take advice from Joe the Plumber), they lost the election due to your good judgment, don’t let them con you into second guessing your judgment — THINK"
Obama is doing exactly what he said he would, but a lot of people don’t actually listen to him. He said it wouldn’t be easy. We’re starting to see that now, that these patterns are deeply ingrained (just look at the morons on Wall St.). I think he’s convinced that the economy probably needs profound structural changes, because the old model simply doesn’t work any more. However, we know there is something to be said for keeping the system at least limping along to ameliorate pain and suffering and we also should be aware that the old model has a lot of staying power and could still reboot, albeit in a detuned form, and could hang around for a good deal longer. But that depends on what the public consciousness is. I think he’s hedging for that possibility, but is prepared to move forward with some bigger changes if it doesn’t. Those will take a huge cultural realignment, however, a big consciousness overhaul that won’t come easy, as well as big changes in economic organization and allocation of resources. That could be a decades-long process.
Just getting this bill through, however flawed, is a step. This is committing the federal government to big expenditures and puts the country down a particular path of future commitments, much like the Iraq War did. The Republicans know this, and they know it will limit their ability to follow their own pet desires. Remember, their new-found "fiscal conservatism" is bullshit, it really means "don’t spend money we want to waste on other shit."
JL
@Montysano (All Hail Marx & Lennon): Rumor on the street is that they are going to do away with Mark to Market and let the banks come up with their own analysis on possible losses. Expect banks to say 97% of their loans are good, if that happens.
TenguPhule
Two words.
Fiscal Conservatism.
(Hey, don’t laugh!)
JL
Obama’s on
wilfred
Maybe it’s about time people stopped boarding the fucking Titanic, because it sinks every time.
Boom and bust capitalism is like terminal cancer. You may go into remission or so but in the long run the patient dies. This complete nonsense about appropriations versus stimulus just masks the inherent rot of the system.
Montysano (All Hail Marx & Lennon)
@JL:
Yeah, I just got my ahead around Mark to Market and wondered who ever thought this was a fine idea. I guess it worked when real estate values kept going up, but when they headed south, it really sucked for the banks.
JL
@georgia pig: Excellent comments. Thune was on CSPAN touting just give everyone who pays taxes and earns less than 250,000, $5000 dollars and let them spend it. He said that it would create as many jobs but he did not mention that it would not solve the underlying problem. He did not mention that it would not solve the unemployment problem.
Rome Again
Well, whenever our side gets a chance to be on tv (which isn’t often) we seem to be there, so I’m thinking yes on the latter and perhaps a bit more of the former (new administration, new attitude, new bill, new fears, perhaps they aren’t quite up to the task yet – remember we ARE only a few weeks into this administration).
My question: who coordinates which lefties are going to go on what tv shows to explain what topics? Do we have anyone who monitors this shit? I’m thinking we don’t, and this is part of why the other side has gotten so far ahead. I realize we are lefties and as such we are much more independent of talking points, but, geez, we gotta have SOME kind of coordination here.
Rome Again
Sure, and when I am homeless and have no fucking place to put all the shit I bought with that $5,000 – then what? It ends up in a landfill somewhere? How many landfills will we fill up that way?
TheHatOnMyCat
@Rome Again:
Yes, but first I still have that errand to do over at STJ. I waited around to see the Prez announce his eco team.
JL
Doug has a post up.
Rome Again
This concept was only created for the good of the greedy, was it not?
Rome Again
@TheHatOnMyCat:
k, go and I’ll see ya in a while. ;)
ksmiami
Get Buffet out there early and often to talk about how lacking the US has been in infrastructure and R&D and that this will undo us in the end. Then get all the small crapo like birth control out of the bill and save it for the budget stuff or another bill. Get the money to states too no delays. And then nail the trogoldyte Repukes every effin day. They want America to fail and care about nothing but their own power to make the US weak.
If that doen’t work, get the bricks and pitchforks ready:
Montysano (All Hail Marx & Lennon)
@Rome Again:
When Mitch Fucking McConnell needs someone to go on teevee and lie their ass off, to get down in the slime and wallow, he’s got a roomful of people waving their hands and shouting "Me! Choose me! I’ll do it!". Our side shows up with pie charts and graphs and talks about bipartisanship. It sucks, but it’s who we are.
I mean….. how does Sean Hannity live with himself? I’m structurally unable to do what he does.
KRK
So, are folks not seeing any "messaging" at the local level? My podunk local newspaper ran a big article last week about how the bill could bring as much as $1M into the county for (badly needed) school construction projects (apparently school districts with a higher percentage of low-income students get more money). And my Democratic Congressman was in town last week to talk about the bill and do a Q&A. I wasn’t able to go, but there was a really big turnout.
Rome Again
Interesting. Kelly O’Donnell on MSNBC just asked the question: "Who has sway over public opinion?"
Isn’t that what we’re talking about right now? Hmmmm!
Gotta Ask Why
@ https://balloon-juice.com/?p=16798#comment-1143047
It’s much easier to be great politicians when you don’t give a s**t about actual governance.
Dem’s are unfortunately destined to be the cyclical martyrs of politics because giving a damn and telling the truth are political weaknesses when the press doesn’t do it’s f**cking job!
Rick Taylor
@El Cid:
I do agree with you, and have said in other posts, that the Democrats in general and Obama in particular could have done a much better job at articulating why we need this and what it’s meant to do. I don’t think it would have made sense to combine the short-range and long-range response in one bill. We have more time to address long-range plans and be sure we get them right, while the short range response needs to happen as quickly as possible (which is the point I was making). Also, the big picture visionary sort of investments we’d like to see are going to be more controversial than this bill was; after all, it was criticized (erroneously) for having too much money that wouldn’t get into the economy quickly.
Rome Again
So Harry Reid is the one who is laying down on the job? Doesn’t surprise me.
William Ockham
@Napoleon: I mean they could start spending the money tomorrow. They’ve got right-of-ways, they’ve got final plans, they’ve filed all the paperwork. Work would have started by now, but the Republicans and the highway lobby doesn’t like the project.
passerby
@Zifnab:
This is why I have doubts about the "infrastructure" money. In Louisiana, and I imagine everywhere else, that money will likely be put through the same old skimming process, leaving crumbs for the lower tier where the actual work gets done.
Then resulting in a budget balloon where more money is requested (or diverted from other projects) which if/when received will be subjected to the skimming process, rinse, repeat. As someone mentioned up thread, hundreds of "Big Digs" with nothing to show.
I’m curious to see how we get ourselves out of this hole. What a clusterfuck.
(Too pessimistic?)
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
Okay, I’m late to the party, but JESUS H. CHRIST.
How fucking stupid are we?
Shovel ready? Christ, how many fucking engineers, draughstmen, analysts, and whatever else will have to get to work on these projects IMMEDIATELY?
So the first shovelful won’t be dug for a few more months, or not until next year– SO FUCKING WHAT?? Do you think there are no engineers out of work out here?
FUCK, how fucking STUPID.
Derelict Dog
Sheesh.
As an engineer, I would LOVE to get some work on public works projects. In fact, I’ve got two projects pending the stimulus bill being passed. Bring it, ferchrissakes.
As for "shovel ready," that’s simple. I’ve had countless projects that were funded through the design phase. They then wait for the funding for the construction phase. Many grant agencies won’t issue funding for the construction phase until the design and right-of-way acquisition is completed. THAT’S what is called shovel ready.
The competition for transportation funding is fierce. Lots of projects are waiting to go to construction. These are projects that improve capacity, safety and commerce.
Calouste
@El Cid:
Very, very true. Being rich is of course both an absolute and a relative measure, and while people having good productive middle class jobs, would make the country as a whole and the rich as well richer in an absolute sense, imagine the horror if you are rich and you can’t hire a gardener or a maid because they actually have proper jobs. You might have to do work yourself! Even if it just is switching on and emptying the robo vacuum cleaner.