Reinvestment Act in Action

According the The New York Times, many states have started spending nearly $50 billion dollars that might create up to 400,000 jobs. This in the first three weeks since the bill was made law.

John D. Porcari, Maryland's transportation secretary, said the state: "would quickly put 10,000 people to work resurfacing dozens of roads, painting and repairing bridges, and putting up guardrails".

The construction industry has an unemployment rate twice that of the national average.

When people against this legislation characterize it as a "New Deal" type of package they are wrong.

Wrong.

This package is intended to spend money quickly (states must begin spending money within four months) and states have a lot of leeway on how it gets spent in terms of public works projects.

Many states are opting for smaller, previously shelved projects to repair roads that are in terrible condition.

Some places are opting for major projects, such as the one causing problems in the state of Washington's legislature over whether or not to tear down the Alaska Way viaduct, an elevated highway in Seattle that "blocks off its waterfront" in order to replace it with a tunnel.

Although there are many fights to come within states about how best to spend the money, two things are for sure.

The money will get spent.

And

People will go back to work.

Families, grocery stores, gas stations, truck drivers, pavement makers, steel workers, restaurants, even banks will benefit from the workers on these projects having a paycheck.

Additionally, people will get off unemployment and other types of public assistance, freeing up those state funds for other things.

Sounds like stimulus to me.

But what do I know?

I'm just a grad student who tries to see the bigger picture... and doesn't expect immediate gratification from a bill that is only three weeks into action...

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Omnibus Bill 2009: GOP pork and Hypocrisy du jour

While Congressional GOP members publicly decried ARRA 2009, there were some deals being made for the Omnibus Spending Bill, 1,124 pages which contain 9,000 earmarks, 40% of which are for GOP congressional pet projects.

While the bill itself has many redundancies with respect to ARRA, it is primarily an appropriations bill to support programs already in place. However, there are several politicians on both sides of the aisle that got funds for their own projects, something the beltway politicians like to call "SOOEY!"

Click here for a list of both Democratic and Republican members who got funding for clients of PMA Group, of whose 396 most recent issues, 309 were for defense.

And this information is for one lobbying group. One.

This bill passes at a time when the Justice Department is investigating earmarks and campaign contributions.

Some examples from the list of the 9,000 earmarks:

Oil Region Alliance sponsored by Collin Peterson (D-MN, House). Pricetag: $200,000.

Sustainable Las Vegas sponsored by Shelley Berkeley (D-NV, House) and Henry Reid (D-NV, House). Pricetag: $913, 000.

A Myrtle Beach International Trade and Convention Center sponsored by Lindsey Graham (R-SC, Senate). Pricetag: $950,000.

The Buffalo Bill Historical Center, Cody, WY for digitizing and editing the Cody collection sponsored by Barbara Cubin (R-WY, House). Pricetag: $190,000.

For a complete list of disclosed earmarks click here and scroll down to "Appropriations Resources"

So while they cried "pork!" at the tops of their lungs into any microphone that was placed before them, they were working on a bill that is indeed pork.

Here's the cherry on top: Beltway GOP members are blaming President Obama for signing it and the Democrats for writing it.

Yes, you read that right: Blaming Obama for signing a bill that the GOP itself voted for and amended for its own projects.

We wanted transparency in our government and it appears we are getting it.

Sometimes, however, I wish the Emperor would put his old clothes back on.

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ARRA 2009: Titles V and VI

*Udpate 2.7.09: Here's a link to funding cuts since the bill has been in the Senate. It's pretty diffuse (for example the TSA lost 200 million, but they still have 1 billion), but a couple programs got hit hard.

Installment 4: Pages 90-114 Titles V and VI

Margaret and Helen visitors, here's the post Honolulu Sally was kind enough to link you to (thank you Honolulu Sally!).

To maintain some sense of continuity, here's the post that is an overall summary of the bill. Here's the post that shows the bare bones figures for Titles I and II; here's III and IV.

For those who are skeptical about this bill, look through each line and see how many items say "construction" or "education" or "outreach". Those words=jobs.

Title V: (pages 90-105)
Department of the Treasury

250 million to "Community Development Financial Institutions Fund Program Account"
--20 million must be allocated for construction, training and outreach designed to benefit Native American, Native Hawaiian, and Native Alaskan peoples (here is what's happening up there in Emmonak in the Yukon Delta; way to go, Palin).
--5 million may be used for administrative purposes

District of Columbia:
125 million to sewer and water authority

Federal Buildings:
9 billion to Federal Building Fund (7 billion available until 2010)
-- not less than 1.4 billion used for Federal buildings and U.S. Courthouses
-- 1.2 billion for border stations
-- 6 billion for to convert GSA facilities to High Performance Green Buildings (construction jobs, communications jobs, etc.)


600 million to procure energy and fuel efficient (including hybrid and electric vehicles) for the Federal Motor Fleet
2 million Inspector General

7 million Recovery Act Supervision Board (these are the people who are going to post information publicly and act as a watchdog over these funds)

84 million: Small Business Administration
--10 million: Inspector General

15 million: Surety Bond Guarantees [sic] Revolving Fund
6 million: Business Loans Program account

(Administrative provisions 97-105; lots of information on protection for small businesses)

Title VI: (105-114)
Department of Homeland Security

248 million for the Office of the Undersecretary of Management
5 million Inspector General
198 million US Customs and Border Patrol salaries and expenses
--100 million for procurement of non-intrusive inspection systems to improve port security
--97 million for procurement and deployment of tactical communications and radios
200 million Border Patrol Fencing, Infrastructure and Technology
800 million construction
27.8 million U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Automation Modernization
1.2 billion for the TSA
572 million for Acquisition, Construction and Improvements for the U.S. Coast Guard
274 million for alteration of bridges

FEMA
6 million acquisition of communications response vehicles
950 million State and Local Programs
--100 million public transportation security, railroad security, system-wide Amtrak security upgrades
-- 100 million for port security grants
--250 million for upgrading, modifying or constructing emergency operations centers
500 million for construction to upgrade or modify critical infrastructure

500 million: Firefighter Assistance Grants
100 million for emergency food and shelter for disaster victims

Federal Law Enforcement Training Center
15 million: Acquisition, Construction, Improvements and related expenses
15 million: science and technology development and research

Again, for those who are skeptical about this bill, look through each line in each of these titles and see how many items say "construction" or "education" or "outreach".

Those words=jobs.

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ARRA and the media: The gap is widening

...between what I am seeing in the cable/national news media and what I have read in the bill.

To save myself a bit of insanity, I want to share words from our leader from yesterday, February 5, 2009:

Part One:



Part Two:


He's rational, funny, and firm. But this is serious people. Make no mistake. We cannot afford to let our country fail.

These are the things the GOP calls pork.

Hungry American children.

Fewer teachers in an already strained education system.

The possibility of creating a ripple effect with public works projects that will help manufacturing.

A new Federal fleet of eco-friendly and energy efficient cars that will come from American auto makers.

This bill is chock full of public works projects.

I read yesterday that the national corps of engineers (you know, the people who worked on that bridge collapse in Minnesota a couple years back?) said there's at least 2 trillion dollars worth of infrastructure that has been neglected in the last eight years and is in desperate need of attention. Literally, our roads, and sewers, and bridges, and water pipes are corroding beneath us.

Our schools will have at least 25% fewer teachers next fall if we don't get this thing passed.

Children of low-income families will not get fed at school, either, unless their parents can pay for the meals (that have been covered by federal assistance programs for years now). And WIC programs will lose funding, too.

This bill is designed to kill two birds with one stone. The American people need jobs and job security. The government has lots of things to work on and needs our help to do it.

It's this simple: create lots and lots of jobs, and hire people to do those jobs.

Win, win every time.

What the GOP is doing in DC is despicable.

The poorest of the poor might never be able to recover. And the longer we wait the chances of any of us keeping our heads above water decrease.

Please, if you care about your life as you know it, and care about the lives of every American: contact your representatives.

We need to know that those who represent us CARE about us.

For your Senators

For your House Representative

It takes, literally, five minutes, the time it takes to write three short emails with these short lines:

Dear So-and_so
Please show your support for the American people by voting for ARRA 2009.

Your country is counting on you to do what we asked you to do in November 2008.

We need to know that you are on our side and can let go of petty politics for something greater than all of us.

Sincerely,
Me

Feel free to copy and paste this even.

We can make this happen. Yes We Can.

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