Neal Peirce

What about stimulus results?

Washington Post Writer's Group, Mar 03, 09.

Tagged with environment, grand parkway, recovery plan

Big and fast. Mind-numbing sums. A demand to get dollars flowing, shovels in the ground, at speeds defying the very definition of “government work.” And for accountability, thousands of projects made Internet-visible through the new web site, www.recovery.gov.

In the battle against bad projects, bad practices or bureaucratic delay, governors and mayors know they’ll be on the hot spot to deliver a quality performance when dealing with the billions of dollars in the Obama administration stimulus projects.

Indeed, the president has warned the mayors that if they don’t spend the stimulus funds wisely, he’d “call them out” and “put a stop” to projects. “The American people are watching,” Obama said. “They need this plan to work. They expect to see (their money) spent in its intended purposes without waste, without inefficiency, without fraud.”

But is all this accountability and public disclosure–as great as it sounds–enough to assure we get not just 2 or 3 million new jobs, but maximum long-term benefit from this massive stimulus bill?

The measure expends, for example, $61.1 billion for highway construction, transit, rail and housing assistance, most of it flowing through states and localities. But it also designates $50.8 billion for the “green,” energy-efficiency types of projects that Obama keeps pushing as keys to our future. There’s $6.3 billion, for example, in block grants to states for energy projects including weatherization, “green” schools, and financing loan guarantees for such renewable energy projects as wind and solar power.

A key question: Will state and local governments see how critical these outlays could be for the country’s future?

Take the initial infrastructure wish lists from state transportation departments. Many were anything but “green,” favoring, for example, new and widened roads instead of repaving existing ones or fixing structurally deficient bridges.

But that’s the quandary. Road and bridge projects to service sprawling exurban development–a big new “Grand Parkway” loop the Texans want to build around Houston, for example–might pass every fiscal test, but still fail miserably on the energy side.

Full story: Stimulus controls vital, but what about results?
Source: The Denver Post, March 1, 2009

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