Tag: American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009

With all the caterwauling about the real or feigned economic firepower of the federal transportation stimulus package, here's something you can take to the bank — lousy roads are costing local drivers a pile of money.

As Congress debates a roughly $825 billion economic stimulus package, many interest groups want to make sure their pet programs get a piece of the action. The education community is no exception.

U.S. Rep. Mike Coffman's spokesman, Tyler Q. Houlton, issued the following statement to the Colorado Independent on Thursday afternoon in response to the story "Coffman cites nonexistent CBO study as reason to vote against stimulus."

"Regardless of how the Congressional Budget Office estimates have been changed or suppressed over the past few days, it does not alleviate the problems of the spending package. The fact is Congressional Democrats and President Obama have increased spending by $604 billion over the next 10 years with very little of it being spent this fiscal year. It is hard to fathom how appropriating spending packages for 2019 will help our economic crisis of today.”

Melding the intermountain West's newfound political muscle with the region's abundant natural resources could kick-start a very potent economic engine to create green jobs via the federal stimulus package, writes Joan McCarter at New West. Of course, it doesn't come without some serious roll up your sleeves post-Bush political rehab.

Congressional Democrats hoping to use the economic stimulus package to force lenders to refinance troubled mortgages have met an unlikely opponent: President Barack Obama. Many Democrats, including Obama, have long-supported the strategy of empowering bankruptcy judges to alter the terms of primary mortgages to prevent foreclosures. But White House officials have said they don’t want the bankruptcy provision in the stimulus bill for fear of alienating Republicans, most of whom oppose the change.

If you’re looking for innovation in Colorado’s share of the Obama administration’s stimulus package, you’re likely to be disappointed in what some transportation officials are calling “a jobs bill.” Most of the $520 million in new spending headed this way will be pumped into much-needed and “shovel-ready” paving projects and repairs for bridges and interchanges that have been put off for years in the face of shrinking federal and state highway budgets.

As President-elect Barack Obama fills his administration with lions of the scientific world comes more potential good news for the state on the proposed federal economic stimulus package.