Tag: economic stimulus

With its stimulus spending, the Obama administration is looking to do two main things: put people to work immediately and create jobs for the future. The best stimulus projects do both. A proposal being floated in Colorado Springs by a nonprofit counseling group called Pike's Peak Behavioral Health puts its increasing population of military veteran clients and patients to work now with plans for work in the future, and has the added benefit of making something useful of foreclosed apartment projects around the state.

The Denver Post reported Saturday that the $400 million in federal stimulus funds Colorado will be spending in the next year or so on roads will be used to pay for work on "small jobs" instead of on "tackling the state's most pressing roads needs," like expanding I-70. The Post's regretful story has the tone right but the reasoning wrong, evincing the same kind of shortsightedness that dogs the stimulus program in general.

Market watchers are celebrating every minor improvement on still-woozy Wall Street trading floors in sharp contrast to Middle America which continues to reel from worsening jobs reports. Is the recent bell-clanging rejoicing coming from daily stock reports really worth the ticker tape they're printed on or should we be looking for a more accurate indicator of our nation's economic fortunes? Zach Carter at The Media Consortium Economic News Ladder pulls it all together with must-read stories from The Nation and Salon.

Senate lawmakers on the left and right came together Thursday to fund more schools in Denver, passing Senate Bill 256. It was a remarkable feat but it may be overshadowed by the big-time poker game the Joint Budget Committee began dealing out Wednesday, which could cost already strapped higher education in the state roughly $400 million. The committee threatened to cut $300 million in state funds, which would automatically disqualify Colorado for $100 million more in federal stimulus cash.

What kind of infrastructure projects will federal stimulus money pay for in the Denver metro area? Are there any highways to nowhere, any multi-laners to yet-to-be built exurb paradises on the prairie?

Awash in the sound and fury of today's anti-tax crusaders -- the refusenik governors, the tea party attendees, the screamers of "socialism," the Ayn Rand-loving libertarians "going Galt," the op-ed writing de facto leaders of the Republican party, the just plain fools -- you would think there was significant disagreement among the U.S. population on the big tax-spending stimulus package. There's not.

Thornton wants more than $300,000 for a police-dog program. Boulder wants $6 million to upgrade its fleet of hybrid cars into "super hybrids." Englewood wants $300,000 for a "self-contained breathing apparatus" and $100,000 for a mobile data terminal to replace obsolete equipment.

It’s still unclear just how much of the $90.2 million in federal stimulus money headed Colorado’s way for urban transit will go to RTD’s FasTracks commuter and light-rail, but what is abundantly clear is it won’t be enough.

One hundred enthusiastic Atlas Shrugged fans braved chilly temperatures on the east steps of the Colorado capitol Friday as part of a nationwide "tea party" protest to rail against the federal stimulus package and the government, in general. Beyond the typical conservative-Libertarian rhetoric was some practical advice on how to "shrug these parasites off our backs" like opening a black market in your own garage.

TCI's own David O. Williams mixes it up with a panel of local experts on Friday's broadcast of the public affairs show "Colorado State of Mind" over federal stimulus funding for state energy projects.