Let’s have a thorough audit of where the $900B TARP infrastructure “shovel ready jobs” money went.
Actually, only a fraction of that was designated for infrastructure in the first place.
That’s exactly what I was going to say!!
It went to put sidewalks, bumpy wheelchair ramps, and crosswalk signal lights in places where no one, literally, ever walks. When my Facebook account was still active, it was a hobby of mine to post pictures of these intersections that I took driving out in the country. Used to annoy my leftist “friends.”
Try firing a couple thousands of DOT federal-level employees.
They don’t “build” anything - only rule and regulate before the funds get sent elsewhere.
Then there was the ARRA Act of 2009 that was to spend 871 billion for infrastructure, etc. .
Buying votes from the ignorant, everyone loses.
That's all very important, but you need to look at it as a sequence of events
First, there was the Bush stimulus in Feb 08, that you had to apply for on your income tax return.
A few months after that Pelosi would start agitating for a second stimulus, but she wanted infrastructure spending included. Both candidates Obama and Clinton signed off on that.
Bush was opposed to infrastructure spending, but before anything happened, the bubble burst and everything started deflating.
Then Bush got the TARP money approved by Congress in Dec, but had to turn it over to Obama and Obama would buy up all the toxic debt. All the leftwingers wanted Obama to hold back on spending the TARP money and force reforms on Wall Street, but he moved quickly because all the credit markets were frozen. So the leftwingers started Occupy Wall Street in protest.
Then you have the Obama stimulus for shovel ready, but it was just Pelosi's stimulus from the year before.
It was not as effective as it should have been because by that time, all the state govts were reeling from the economic collapse and they would use Obama's stimulus money in lieu of state money.
For example, Texas got significant Obama stimulus money for roads, school spending, and dredging ports, which they spent. Had they not got the Obama stimulus, the lege would have had to appropriate the money, so consequently, there was no net increase in spending.