One wouldn’t think that warnings of too much money to spend would be heard during a House Subcommittee on Aviation hearing in Washington, DC; but they were. The passing of the stimulus bill means there is a lot of money, but the U.S. and the states don’t have the mechanisms in place, nor the controls, to efficiently spend that much.
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (for full copy click here) as the stimulus bill is officially known will rush $787 billion into the economy in a blend of tax relief, state assistance, infrastructure and social spending.
And before the spending, the decisions on exactly what should be developed, who will be in charge of it, whose budgets the money passes through and how new infrastructure will be maintained all has to be decided.
It is easy to order a massive federal government and 50 state governments to spend. The hard part is spending the money well, controlling the spending and maintaining it. With aviation infrastructure there is an additional need to train users on the ground and in the air about how to use the technology as well as making decisions about just what technology is the best and most cost-effective.
In an earlier column, I detailed the problems the FAA is facing in trying to introduce the NextGen system for air traffic control. Air traffic controllers have one set of ideas, pilots another and airport managers yet another. Even when safety is concerned, there are many voices. Recently, the NTSB and the FAA were having a war of words over safety.
These problems will be repeated throughout our governmental system. I am certain that the stimulus program will allow some projects to move forward, however in our rush to spend money, we need to realize that spending it foolishly is just that, foolish.
According to an article in the Washington Times
“The sheer size of spending increases in the $787 billion measure threatens to overwhelm the agencies that administer the money and the government watchdogs who keep the agencies in line.”
“Two chief examples are the Transportation Department, whose 2008 budget of $68 billion will be augmented by an additional $43 billion over the life of the bill, and the Energy Department, with an annual budget of $25 billion, which is slated to disburse $42 billion for grants, loans and other programs under its jurisdiction.”
A look back at homeland security spending is illustrative. I have spoken with government workers who acknowledge that much of the homeland security grant money has still not been spent. The government entities that requested the money, or that had it forced on them, could not spend that much.
Where that money was spent was often proven wasteful in hindsight. Many police chiefs say we have “enough bomb robots, chem-bio suits and equipment that often gathers dust in warehouses.” USAToday reported:
Since 9/11, the IACP says, 99,000 people have been murdered in the USA and 1.4 million are the victims of violent crime each year. “In terms of day-to-day crime fighting, we’re far worse off than we were before 9/11,” IACP’s Ronald Ruecker says.
In rural areas such as Knox County, Ohio, fire officials want to sell a $30,000 hazardous materials truck that they bought with federal homeland security money in 2004. The truck has to be stored and insured, but “it has never been used,” says Rick Lanuzza, head of the county fire chiefs.
In cities such as Miami, where Police Chief John Timoney says “we’re grateful” for the homeland security money, but violent crime, gang activity and drug dealing are on the rise, and “I’ve had three homicides this week with AK-47s.”
Before our stimulus money gets spent on doorbells for the elderly in Laurel, Mississippi, or on a new $600 million heritage trail along the Natchez Trace, let’s all take a deep breath and contact legislators at national and state levels to encourage them to do the right thing and build projects that might serve our children and grandchildren who will more than likely still be paying for the projects.
A website, stimuluswatch.org, has compiled an eye-popping, state-by-state list of projects for the money. It is really amazing to see where much of the money will be flowing.
A website, Recovery.gov, will detail spending and plans for much of the stimulus money, but again once the money is doled out in June, the projects are in the hands of the localities and organizations on the ground. At that point any kind of meaningful national control and national media spotlight is gone. We will all be in a game of hope and wait with our fingers crossed.
Charlie Leocha is the President of Travelers United. He has been working in Washington, DC, for the past 14 years with Congress, the Department of Transportation, and industry stakeholders on travel issues. He was the first consumer representative to the Advisory Committee for Aviation Consumer Protections appointed by the Secretary of Transportation from 2012 through 2018.
