Posted on 08/20/2010 12:48:34 PM PDT by yoe
The U.S. Department of Transportation imposed strict guidelines for the placement, size, and visibility of signs promoting the $862-billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), popularly known as the economic stimulus bill, according to a review by DOT’s inspector general released on Thursday.
Some Republican congressman say the signs amount to taxpayer-funded propaganda for the stimulus package.
Two DOT agencies--transit and rail--initially required that stimulus-funded projects post ARRA signs, but now the DOT “strongly encourages” the use of such signs, the IG review says. The IG review came in response to questions by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), the ranking Republican on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, about the cost and policies regarding the Recovery Act signs.
Guidelines on the signs from six different DOT agencies focus heavily on publicity.
Most of the guidelines call for “economic recovery signs [to] be placed where they can be easily identified with the corresponding projects,” while the Federal Aviation Administration says “the signs should be solely used to publicize ARRA funding of an airport project,” according to the IG report.
DOT spokesman Bill Adams stressed that the Transportation Department as a whole never required use of signs, only the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) and the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) did.
“Signs for highway projects were never required,” Adams told CNSNews.com on Thursday in a written response to questions. “Transit agencies and Amtrak were initially required to post signs on projects, but out of more than 15,000 projects approved to date, fewer than 300 transit facility contracts were affected before the requirement was eliminated.”
(Excerpt) Read more at cnsnews.com ...
Every one of these signs needs to be tagged...
OBAMA - WASTING TAXPAYER’S MONEY!
I’m surprised they weren’t required to stamp them with the O-stika.
The only things the signs do is piss me off.
My town is littered with those stupid signs.
Local, state and a boost of Stimulus money all converged on my town at once - every project that was stalled because of funding, or was seen as a non necessity or was stupid is now being done all at once for fear the money will disappear.....it’s like driving through Beirut - back in the day...
The mess is creating more Republicans though....
The list ping
What Maroons! Now the signs promote how they failed, what irony!
O-stika!
I LIKE that!!
Very good!
You know we're f#^^%d when the government takes our money and uses it to create a hole so they can take more of our money to dump down that same hole. All for the sake of making them look like they are doing something productive. We the people have allowed our elected officials to do this kind of thing for years and now its biting us in the butt. Maybe at the next anti gov rally in DC someone can provide a truck load of feathers and some hot tar to go with it and then distribute small amounts of both to those who attend. Oh yeah, don't forget the pitch forks.
Your great-grandchildren’s tax dollars at work.”
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