On page 85 of his excellent quick-history, The Promise, Jon Alter discusses Obama's 2009 stimulus bill:
The biggest frustration involved infrastructure. Obama said later that he learned that "one of the biggest lies in government is the idea of 'shovel-ready' projects." It turned out that only about $20 billion to $40 billion in construction contracts were truly ready to go. The rest were tied up in the endless contracting delays and bureaucratic hassles associated with building anything in America. [E.A.]
a) Good that Obama is still learning, but the realization that the expensive projects he repeatedly assured Americans were "shovel-ready" actually weren't comes a little late, no? The economy needed stimulating 18 months ago. How many unemployed Americans could have had jobs for the last year and a half if Obama had realized the House Dems' "shovel-ready" pitch was a crock and pursued other, quicker forms of stimulus--like an instant payroll tax cut?
I have also maintained that Obama is not that smart. An ideologue, a Marxist, a Fascist at heart, a racist, but not that smart if he really believe in the "shovel ready jobs" myth.
1 comment:
The shame of it all is that communities like my own got all excited when the "shovel ready" thing was announced. They actually believed this would help them as we have been working on infrastructure and figured this would lighten the load for the local taxpayer.
NOT!!!!!!!!!!!!
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