President Obama to Mark Stimulus Milestone: 2,000th Transportation Project

2,00 projects are nice, but what about actual job numbers? How many workers has the stimulus crated?

I don’t think either side criticizes the infrastructure stimulus spending (other than it being too small a portion of the bill), so this is an awfully safe photo-op.

Republicans are the most frustrated Americans and I’m loving it. Do your thing president Obama..most of us support you. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel and it seems most Americans can too.

I am confused as to how projects can be coming in under budget when they have not been completed or even started in most cases. I also wonder who writes Biden’s speeches when they include a line like “don’t take my word for it.” That is so amateurish sounding that I wonder if Biden may actually write his own speeches. Why throw a bunch of money into highway projects when the administration is attacking the vehicles that would make use of them? Shouldn’t they think about funding research into more forward thinking projects other than highway widening? I am confused by the rhetoric coming from this administration.

James Danley:”Funding is one thing! Has work started on any of these transportation projects yet? That’s the number I care about!”
Depends on what you consider work. Funding means that the bidders already put people to work responding to the RFP with an appropriate proposal. Costing out a project and putting together a bid package is not done by elves overnight (as much as every small business wish it were), so yes work has begun – budgeting, scheduling, staffing needs, and at least general construction sequencing plans have been prepped.

jhw539: “At times Obama has sounded embarrassingly like a car salesman. Doesn’t matter if you drive a Prius or a Suburban, you need a patch of pavement.”
You make my point very well by bringing up Obama’s pathetic statements of “the Federal Gov’t stands behind your warranty, and these are really good cars too.” That is exactly not what I want to hear as I own 2 GM vehicles and do not want to have to deal with a government administered warranty plan if something breaks down on one of my cars. I also don’t think very many people will buy a car just because the president says they are great, in fact they may wonder why it was necessary for the POTUS to make such a statement. I also view the future CAFE restrictions as an attack on the types of vehicles that are needed in the midwest. This is not Europe with very concentrated cities, this is the land of vast distances between cities and larger families as well. Try going on a cross country trip in a Prius with two kids and all your camping gear, much less with three or four kids and the family dog. I am not against expanding highway improvements, I am just saying that it does not make sense with the talk from the admin about how we need to drive less, etc… I only wish your point about tax breaks was true. The only significant money spent was on a lousy $13 a week less from our withholdings, not too much I can do with that.

Jason:”I also view the future CAFE restrictions as an attack on the types of vehicles that are needed in the midwest. This is not Europe with very concentrated cities, this is the land of vast distances between cities and larger families as well. Try going on a cross country trip in a Prius with two kids and all your camping gear, much less with three or four kids and the family dog.”
Minivans are available with fine mileage – over 25 mpg for those vast distances on the highway. And for a family of 4, a Prius (or more reasonably, a Corolla or equivalent) have worked great in my experience.
Personally, I resent the enormous financial subsidies given to keep gas so low that people have no idea what it’s true cost is and now think cheap gas (supported on the backs of everything from a huge military to keep supplies stable to the constant funneling of federal dollars into infrastructure far in excess of the small federal gas tax) is some sort of basic right. I would prefer that these externalities go into a gas tax to leave the market free to sort out the best vehicles, but the political will is lacking so the CAFE is the next best approach to dealing with this critical national security issue.

almost a thousand jobs in just one city for three years, thats not counting the amount of people who could have been laid off if this project had not been funded, state workers engineers ect. We will be getting people back to work, city by city, state by state..unfortunately since the bill cut back on spending..to satisfy repubs, a mistake in my opinion,most projects are just overlays, which are fast short projects and don’t provide long term employment..like the Mich. project of new construction..we need more big projects like this, but they had to spread the money around on little projects in every state to help give relief to the unemployed #s

Question: Isn’t giving the states unfettered stimulus money similar to writing another check to AIG? Case in point: widening I-94 in MI. Ask Erin Nicole or Captain Dennis Neubacher, from WXYZ, what average rush hour speeds are on I-94. Do we need to spend $68 million for more lanes when we’re already traveling over 50 MPH? Fix the roads? Fine. Spend $68 million in blighted neighborhoods tearing down abandoned homes and planting gardens? Fine. Build a field of windmills and harness their power, don’t tilt at them. Couldn’t the Obama team have asked Govs for a Biz Plan, similar to GM request? Shouldn’t they have to use measured evidence before spending our money? Granholm wants 6 lanes? Prove that project is necessary / helpful, and not for show, like this 2,000th “celebration”. Using the MI example demonstrates sleepy staffers, not willing to do the homework — just like the OOPS memo released with notes.

Question, does that mean, that everyone that has lost a job in Michigan, will get a shovel to work on the highway????

What about the out sourced jobs? No one is talking about bringing it back or taxing the imported goods!