Stimulus Planning, Or Pork-Barrel Feasting?
Without a plan and some standards, the Obama stimulus program turns into a cookie jar.
The Cap Times has a round-up, too.
I'd say, if it's a green project, it goes to the head of the list.
If it's routine highway expansion, to the bottom.
Driving is down, fuel prices will rise again, aging boomers will drive less, and demand for more lanes and fancy bypasses will decline.
Transit demand will rise, so let's add trains and buses, repair the roads we have, make the bridges safer and generally fix infrastructure before adding even more highways that then need maintenance, plowing, and traffic enforcement.
3 comments:
Even "green" projects are pork - regardless of any perceived merit.
If Congress was honest, they wouldn't lump these projects into an omnibus spending package, but rather, break out each project and vote on it separately.
I'd be curious to see Kagen's vote to send money to Milwaukee, Racine, and Kenosha to build a train...
to Publius; I disagree about pork being green. Depends on the project.
There is an immediacy to the need for federal stimulus action, given rising joblessness, but that should not be an excuse to shovel all the money in Wisconsin into over-budgeted road projects.
I'm not advocating bloated transportation projects - because that is one industry that is not hurting in the recession. Even if they were, the number of road building jobs in the state doesn't justify the disproportionate expenditure ratios.
Same goes for "green" projects.
Those jobs - whatever they are - are not going to put sufficient numbers of people to work to justify the disproportionate expenditure ratios.
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