I would wager that if and when the paper trail is sorted out, it will be shown that billions of taxpayer dollars have been shovelled out the door to cronies, crooks, fellow travellers, and assorted other people. Considering the scale and scope of this rip-off, shovels will do, but forklifts would probably be a more efficient means of off-loading the treasury...
That’s ‘The Chicago Way’.
Make that trillions. He is the peak of a criminal pyramid.
OK, so Obama still doesn’t get it. But then I’m still trying to figure out what he meant.
No such thing as shovel-ready jobs: public works projects tend to go to people who already have jobs...including (gasp!) white men, as Robert Reich observed.
They tend to consume more in taxes than they produce in benefit, regarding the Goldberg’s LA County example of $111 million to “save” 55 jobs. I would agree that graft would almost have to be involved there. Also publicity is expensive, in regards to the sign example. But if this is what he meant, I would say that he is coming close to getting it.
Possibly he meant that it takes some time for projects to get approved and all, but if that’s what he meant, he would have spun it differently. He seems to be admitting that unemployment will not be decreasing any time soon.