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Infrastructure: On top of the other failures of President Obama's $787 billion stimulus plan you can now add this: It didn't even fulfill the simple promise of creating more highway jobs and improving roadways.
Shortly after getting the gargantuan program through Congress, Obama heralded the stimulus' $28 billion in new highway money, calling it "the largest new investment in America's infrastructure since President Eisenhower built the Interstate Highway System" and promising that it would "help states create a 21st-century infrastructure."
Obama also said that the extra highway money would "create or save" 150,000 jobs by the end of 2010.
Well, the results are in.
A new study by economists Timothy Conley of the University of Western Ontario and Bill Dupor of Ohio State found that despite the influx of all that federal money, highway construction jobs actually plunged by nearly 70,000 between 2008 and 2010.
As the authors explain, many states simply took the free federal money and shifted their own highway funds to meet other needs. In fact, in some states, highway spending dropped, even with the added federal money.
Examples cited in the study:
• Texas got $700 million in highway stimulus funds last year, but spent $560 million less on its roads in 2010 than it did in 2009.
• New York's highway spending was basically unchanged between 2009 and 2010, despite getting $522 million more in federal highway bucks.
• Michigan boosted its highway spending just $17.4 million, far below the $189 million extra the feds handed the state for highway improvements.
The Department of Transportation, meanwhile, found that 21 states weren't abiding by rules meant to prevent just this sort of shell game.
No wonder Ernst & Young's Urban Land Institute concluded in a report out this week that the stimulus "did not meet the public's inflated expectations for game-changing economic improvements" and that the nation's highway system is still in serious trouble.
Now, if this were the worst of the problems with the bloated stimulus bill, it would be bad enough. But there's growing evidence that the stimulus did little to improve the jobs picture overall.
Conley and Dupor found that, overall, the $500 billion in stimulus spending did "create or save" 443,000 state and local government jobs, but it "destroyed or forestalled" 1 million private-sector jobs. In part, they say, that's because the growth in state jobs crowded out private-sector job growth.
Research by John Cogan and John Taylor of Stanford's Hoover Institution found zero effect one way or another from all that stimulus money, since states mainly used the funds to cut back on borrowing, and the temporary tax cuts didn't stimulate extra consumer spending.
The Obama administration and Democratic leadership could easily save some money by incorporating old Soviet propaganda posters like those above to manifest their actions and vision. Today, the Obama administration is inserting federal government dictates into major aspects of life and the economy ...
Military: What's the U.S. Navy doing naming a ship after a leftist activist? If it wants to honor American Hispanics, there are scores of military heroes more worthy than Cesar Chavez. Apparently, even the military isn't immune to being reimaged into the Obama world view. It was announced ...
Media: The Obama administration has picked another fight with a dissident newspaper, kicking the Boston Herald out of the press pool on an unprecedented claim that its coverage is unfair. Who died and elected them judge? If the mainstream media had any gumption at all, they would vigorously ...
National Security: In violation of U.S. law, the administration plans to give China's top military leaders a tour of our most sensitive military installations and projects. The knowledge gained will aid their military buildup. Who needs spy satellites when the Obama administration is willing ...
Hear that? It's the escalating cry of American employers and workers trying to hold on to their health care benefits in the age of stifling Obama health insurance mandates: Gangway! Gangway! Save me! Waive me! ObamaCare refugees first began beating down the exit doors in October 2010. Waiver-mania ...
Posted By: KansasGirl(30) on 5/18/2011 | 11:35 PM ET
Why does this surprise anyone? This was nothing but money laundering.
Posted By: zenga(2055) on 5/18/2011 | 8:27 PM ET
cash for clunkers on a grand scale. oh, and astronomical stupidity from the king of idiots.
Posted By: niteski(2165) on 5/18/2011 | 7:18 PM ET
If you prove money for food, then the other money goes to drugs and alcohol. OK, not for everybody, but for many.
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