What exactly constitutes shovel-ready? Just ask Chris Dodd, who knows what's in, and what's out, and how to work the margins to get more dough for the home team:
Norwich - A group of the region's leaders told U.S. Sen. Chris Dodd Friday afternoon that they are skeptical of and confused by key aspects of a potential economic stimulus package Congress hopes to pass by the middle of next month.
The projected $800 billion-plus bill is being promoted as a means to stimulate the economy primarily by putting people to work on “shovel-ready” infrastructure projects.
However, the definition of “shovel-ready” has proved elusive and, some say, counterintuitive.
Dodd provided a local example: the $34 million middle school expansion and renovation in Griswold, which broke ground in December, would not qualify because it is already under way.
”If you have a shovel in place, then it is not shovel-ready,” Dodd cracked....
Dodd said Friday he is working to move up the timeline of the Shore Line East expansion to New London so it qualifies as a “shovel-ready” project. The expansion wouldn't currently qualify because it has been delayed until at least 2010.
Of course, local officials in Connecticut aren't quite convinced:
Others are also concerned about a provision that sends funding directly to governors, allowing them to choose the projects.
The arrangement, according to Dodd and some in attendance, renders any boast of “no earmarks” in the package disingenuous, instead passing it from the federal to the state level.
”We need to get this money as close to the ground floor as possible,” East Lyme First Selectman Paul Formica said, echoing comments of other leaders at the meeting.
[Mark] Oefinger {town manager, Groton CT], like others, expressed concern that the stimulus will not provide long-term benefits or jobs.
”I think it's going to be dumping a lot of money down the rat hole and not have a lot to show for it,” he said.
Yeah, but if you happen to raise questions about whether or not this hastily conceived exercise in dispersing $825 Billion in newly printed money will actually work, according to one of our local liberal bloggers with delusions of adequacy, you want nothing more than to f**k the country for another two years by being obstructionist and hope that the country blames the ass-raping on Democrats when the mid-term elections roll around.
3 comments:
Oh,but Steve they're returning "maturity" to power...the "adults" are back in charge.
Nothing like a bunch of bitchy partisan (and crypto-partisan) nannies to run our lives for us.
The level of partisan bile you referenced is such cheap cover for the philosophical, intellectual, and practical bankruptcy of this newest rendition of ad hoc national government expansionist profligacy, centered around and reinforced by a worshipful cult of personality.
I am sorry, it just is. I hear plenty of (real) liberals expressing worry about Obamalemmings.
Some of these folks are beyond-the-pale nast, vicious, and blindly-worshipful of apparently anything Obama wants, especially in his service to eternal Democrat Government dominance, patronage, and political hegemony throughout the land.
They are a mirror-image answer to Bush's 25%er absolutists, except their Kool Aid is blue.
Partisanship is so odd... If the Republicans wanted to win in a walk in two years, all they would have to do is object enough to be on record and then sit back and let Obama do whatever he wants. It's precisely because I don't want the Republicans to win in two years (without massively reforming their party, at least) that I feel it's so utterly important that we stop Obama's suicidal fiscal policy.
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