The "Stimulus" That Won't Stimulate a Damn Thing

As someone who works closely with construction firms--some would argue the backbone of the economy--are banking everything on the stimulus package. They were promised infrastructure upgrades worth hundreds of billions and in some cases are barely hanging in there hoping against hope that it goes through. Ask anyone in construction or anyone who supplies those firm with brick, block, asphalt, concrete or wood about how business is going and you'll hear one refrain: "I can't wait until the stimulus goes through."

Well, it appears their hope has been dramatically misplaced and may be for naught:

House Republican Leader John Boehner issued a statement over the weekend noting that the stimulus bill wending its way through Congress provides $4.19 billion for "neighborhood stabilization activities."

He said the money was previously limited to state and local governments, but that Democrats now want part of it to be available to non-profit entities. That means groups like ACORN would be eligible for a portion of the funds.

Sen. David Vitter, R-La., told FOX News Tuesday that the money could be seen as "payoff" for groups' political activities in the last election. ACORN generally supports Democratic candidates and actively backed President Obama last year.

$4.19 billion would pay for a lot of roads and dozens of schools. Just as an example, I was recently working on a $32-million dollar combination middle/grammar school for ages pre-K through 8th. That project is employing 9 different construction trades encompassing about 70-90 workers making good, union wages. Add to that engineers and management and you're looking at another 10 people making upper-middle class wages. Now add to that the people who are ancillary site workers--surveyors, cleaning people, street sweepers, etc. Now add to that the service suppliers like the port-a-potty guy, the roach coach guy, the office cleaners, etc. Now add to that the suppliers who supply windows, doors, steel, roofing materials, mortar mix, fuel and a million other things. Add it up and you have 120-150 people directly associated with the job with double that still to work after this phase is completed including floor guys, finish electricians, HVAC guys, painters, sprinkler guys, etc. All those jobs on a job contracted at $32-million.

That $4.19 billion could be used to build 131 similar-sized schools or about 2.6 per state. Instead it's going to pay off liberal activist groups including ACORN who allegedly committed enormous voter fraud in favor of the Dems.

Dems want a stabilized neighborhood? Build quality schools where kids get an education in a safe environment and we'll see returns a thousand times greater than could be accomplished by an army of community organizers or neighborhood stabilizers. Hell, the teachers already vote for them and will vote in larger numbers if they have new, clean buildings to work in.

Pelosi wanted $200-million for birth control (which Obama gave her the finger on) while Murtha is waiting to roll in the money like the fat fucking pig he is and meanwhile, you have construction company owners maxed out or unable to get credit hoping beyond hope that the stimulus will get passed and the money will start to flow to the original beneficiaries--the states for infrastructure work.

I was a huge proponent of letting AIG, the banks and the auto companies wither and die. If they couldn't hack it, it wasn't up to us to bail their asses out. Not so for construction because once the construction industry starts to die, we'll have a loss of small business employment that will make the large company layoffs look like a joke. They are dangerously close to that precipice as we speak and the pork going to ridiculous recipients will ensure they go right over the edge for good.
Exit question: How exactly would $50-million for the National Endowment for the Arts stimulate anything beside some psychotic "artist" who gets off on pix of Christ in Urine or pictures of actual shit?

Tim Blair catches this:

“We wanted to make sure arts were not left out of the recovery,” said Robert L. Lynch, president of Americans for the Arts, a national lobbying group. “The artist’s paycheck is every bit as important as the steelworker’s paycheck or the autoworker’s paycheck.”

Let's see, without steel workers receiving paychecks, essentially nothing gets built. Now take away artists paychecks and...well, you'd have a bunch of useless slackers with liberal arts degrees paid for by their parents living off the government dole, so effectively, nothing will change from when the economy was good.