Coming from Boston, i know how these things work (like the “Big Dig”). The government announces huge new construction projects-so the local politicians alert their friends who own construction companies. They form companies to buy up the land, and set up phoney "minority owned’ construction firms (so they can get the contracts). Then the unions get into the act-featherbedding and job-selling goes along. In the end, you have a huge number of jerry-built, unsafe tunnels, bridges, schools, courthouses, etc.-and huge repair costs! Take the “Big Dig” itself-originally planned at $2.1 billion, the monstrosity grew to >15 billion! meanwhile, defective concrete was poured (increasing the contractor's profits), and construction materials (steel and pipe) were stolen from the jobsite (and resold to the same contractors). Now, the state AG is looking at a string of indictments lasting into 2020 (at least), and the courts are revving up to deal with this. So, is Obama's plan a good one? I'd prefer that huge trucks just distribute the 1 trillon, by dumping out $100 bills on city streets.
Do we even know what the plan is beyond the generalities?
I think the big dig might have been…um…exceptional. Plenty of large construction projects have gone off with a minimum of corruption and legal drama. IMHO there’s always going to be a certain amount of that when someone wants to run a bypass through someone else’s living room. Lots of eminent domain issues I imagine. Does a federal program give states and localities greater eminent domain powers to finally ram their stalled projects through? I don’t know.
I’d like to be first in to say that, should it come to pass, I will admire the balls of anybody who steps into a huge governmental bailout with the specific main goal of skimming personal profit out of it.
First, a lot of the projects are already on the list. Second, I agree that plenty of projects are not corrupt. a massive freeway improvement near me got done early and under budget. Third, Obama spent his entire political life in Chicago. The possibility of graft has very likely occurred to him.
You may be interested to know that folks are already thinking about the issue. I recently recieved a news email from the American Society of Civil Engineers which urges us to get involved:
From the article:
We already tried that in Iraq and it did not work.
I am gonna update my legal address and register to vote just so I can nag my congressman about this, people sure do get carried away when it comes to giving out my money.
Seriously, this is an excellent idea and I wish everyone in the country would nag their congressman about spending the stimulus money.
A billion here, a billion there…pretty soon, you’re talking real money.
We had quite a bit of fun where I used to live…
From here:
Of course, there will be some amount of graft and a larger amount of waste. What, you don’t think anyone at General Motors never got a little kickback from steering business to his friend? You think General Electric’s bureaucracy never wasted any money? And, I wonder, do you think that other government spending – say, the ‘reconstruction’ of Iraq – is more or less problematic than building bridges?
Frankly, on the graft-potential scale, I put, say, the CDC at about 2, average corporation at about 3, defense payroll at 4, bridges/highways at 5, defense procurement at 7, and the Iraq reconstruction at about 28.
Sometimes I miss sarcasm on the internet. Is this one of those times?
The US Conference of Mayors also has a report listing suggestions.
Elsewhere on the website, they’ve got a slightly larger report listing public works projects, by city, that are “ready to go”. About a third of the cities in my area didn’t send them their wish lists, but you know that their public works departments have one.
IIRC, the FHWA has been urging state DOTs to go through their planned projects and select those which are ready to go, and I think the DOTs have complied. I’m hoping that a lot of those include rehabilitation and upgrade work.
Receiving kickbacks in the private sector is merely fraud where as doing it in the government is corruption and bribery. If you get caught in the private sector you’ll get fired and maybe prosecuted, even then you go to state prison and do about a 1/3rd of your actual sentence. If you screw over the feds you definitely get prosecuted and do every single day they sentence you to. Private money and public money are different and that is a good thing.
I hope graft is minimized, but at least in this case there is a silver lining-the point is not only to build something, but also to get more money in circulation in ways that it circulates. Even a graft-ridden project at least achieves half of the goal. It could be worse.
Yes, and the site Yllaria linked to even shows the number of jobs per project. Those workers are going to be spending their paychecks at the local level.
Conservative: Government spending never does any good because all the money is just wasted in corruption and graft!
Conservative government wastes trillions in corrupt defense procurement and foreign wars
Conservative: See? I told you so!
Then you’ll have plenty of people to admire.
Any government program has its share of scammers who find ways to play the system to their benefit. The usual example are welfare frauds, but there are rich doctors scamming Medicare, or manufacturers charging $500 for a hammer for the military. A bailout will be no different. All you can do is try to enforce controls vigorously.
Gee…d’ya THINK? 
People are already skimming off the banking bailout.