LaHood: Stimulus money 'out the door'

by Mark Silva

With nearly $800 billion of public spending being pumped into the economy during the next few years, under the economic stimulus that Congress approved at President Barack Obama's urging, some have asked how quickly any of this can turn into relief.

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood will make the case today, at a 1 pm EDT speech at the National Press Club in Washington, that shovels already are turning in some of the "shovel-ready'' projects that states offered up for the stimulus act.

LaHood, the Republican former congressman from Peoria who joined the Democratic president's Cabinet, will bring a guest today: Willie Fort, a 32-year-old father of four from Mississippi, working on a project funded under the economic stimulus act -- a highway project in Louisiana which should keep him working for the next two years.

"To be sure, the American public, and the media, have a perfect right to question whether the government can actually push more than $780 billion out the door quickly enough to fight the recession and make a difference,'' LaHood plans to say today. "In fact, that's exactly what we're doing.''

The DOT has made "more money available to states, more quickly", than with any of its routine programs, the secretary will say.

"For example, the highway portion of the stimulus package is flowing at the rate of nearly $ 4 billion dollars a month - about twice as fast as traditional highway dollars,'' he will say, according to excerpts from the secretary's office.

"When it comes to rolling out the money, we're actually ahead of schedule,'' LaHood will say. "As of this week, we've made nearly $13 billion available - more than a third of our total formula funds... Every new project we announce is an immediate signal for states to advertise contracts, and for contractors to begin hiring workers and ordering materials like steel and asphalt.''

The secretary will make this points:

• The FAA has already made nearly 100 percent of its recovery funds available for hundreds of airport construction projects all over the country.
• Tthe Federal Transit Administration is about to unleash more than 60 grants, pumping 640 million dollars into urban and rural economies.
• Every job that puts an unemployed breadwinner back to work so he or she can support a family, is an important job. And it has a ripple effect.
• Every job that attracts a worker who cannot find employment elsewhere, is filling a need, no matter where it happens to be.
• If you simply reduce the Recovery Act to a scorecard, then you're missing the real value of this effort.
• It's about people. Their livelihood. And their ability to continue contributing to society.

"I met this week with the heads of several highway contractors from South Dakota, Montana, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, and elsewhere,'' he will say. "And they tell a story you may not have heard...

"Many of these companies that pour concrete, repave roads, and rebuild bridges were on the verge of laying off hundreds of people. But when they saw the stimulus package coming down the pike, they said, let's hold on. Let's keep these people on the payroll and see what happens.

"We're not just talking about hourly workers - we're talking about salaried employees like estimators and engineers,'' LaHood will say. "And now, because many of these companies have stimulus contracts, they're not only able to keep the people that have been with them for years - they're also hiring new employees - and re-hiring people they laid off earlier.''