This really frosts my balls

[glatt]

See, what happened was a state would have a million bucks in its road budget, so they would look around at everything they could do for a million bucks. They would have one section of road that needed to have some potholes filled, and they would also see a bridge that needed to be replaced. The road could be fixed for the million dollar budget. The bridge was gonna cost $100 million. So they planned to fix the road. They got the project into the pipeline and made it shovel ready. But they hadn't started the work yet.

Then Obama came along and said "I'll give you as much money as you can spend right now." They really needed a new bridge, but they needed a couple years to plan for that. The potholes were ready to be fixed right away. So Obama gave them money for the potholes.

The bridge still needs fixing badly. But so did the potholes.

Was the money wasted? Depends on how you define that. It stimulated the economy fairly quickly, and some potholes got filled. Hope that bridge doesn't fall down.

[classicman]

Originally Posted by glatt

Hope that bridge doesn't fall down.

Me too. Thats what my friend was referring to though. The orders for "cosmetic supplies" are through the roof. The stuff to paint the stripes on the roads and signage and that sort of thing. He said its incredible how much they are doing & spending while avoiding the roads that need the work the most.

There are bridges and serious failures that NEED to be addressed that are getting less money than they were getting because of the spend it now mandate.

Originally Posted by classicman

There are bridges and serious failures that NEED to be addressed that are getting less money than they were getting because of the spend it now mandate.

That is not quite the case.

Those bridges and serious failures were not getting addressed before the stimulus money mostly because the states couldnt afford it before the recession or were not willing to make it a higher priority and re-direct funding from other state budget items.

[glatt]

From my observations, it's true. Lots of nice bright new lane lines and zebra stripes all over the place.

I would have liked to see money spent on old bridges and other critical infrastructure, but I don't think that would have made it through the political process. The excuse for throwing money around was the stimulation, which meant it had to be fast.

[jinx]

Originally Posted by glatt

From my observations, it's true. Lots of nice bright new lane lines and zebra stripes all over the place.

I would have liked to see money spent on old bridges and other critical infrastructure, but I don't think that would have made it through the political process. The excuse for throwing money around was the stimulation, which meant it had to be fast.

We just recently got new oil, chips, and stripes down the road we travel most. Oh, and rumble strips down the whole center of the road.

Bridges are huge concern - but lack of clean drinking water due to infrastructure failure should really get people's attention. Cholera, typhoid, dysentary, giardia, cryptospoidium, fasciolopsiasis, botulism, e.coli, legionellosis, gastroenteritis, hep A, campylobacterosis etc etc... Welcome back to the 1800's.