We say "GO" today and it will be a year before we have drawings, engineering specs, site surveys and bid proposals.
It will be another year before any significant construction jobs creation will take place.
We will be half way through Obama's single-term presidency before any of these jobs will be created.
In the meantime, millions of existing jobs will be destroyed.
About the only kind of immediate "make-work" jobs that can be created are those paying people to pick up trash along the roads and Interstates.
From an article posted at http://skagitrepublican.typepad.com from a recent article in their local newspaper...
“But, local governments are having little success finding projects that can benefit from the stimulus package or that would create a substantial number of jobs.
The Herald reported that Skagit County Public Works Director Jim Voetberg said the proposals he submitted a week ago for the stimulus package were road resurfacing projects that he admitted wouldn’t create a lot of new jobs. But pavement work was the only type of project the county would be ready to begin within the short time-window required by the stimulus bill, Voetberg said.
Skagit Transit asked for $3.2 million to complete funding of the Chuckanut Park & Ride north of Burlington, Transit Executive Director Dale O’Brien said.
And, according to Mayor Dean Maxwell, Anacortes has a few projects in mind, including a roundabout at Highway 20 and Commercial Avenue, road work at the site of a proposed business park south of the city, and upgrades to Pennsylvania Avenue and the water and wastewater treatment plants.
Many of these projects were already on the public works calendars with funding to come from local, county and state tax funds. No one seems able to explain how shifting the funding of these projects from the right pocket to the left pocket of the taxpayer will create new jobs.
The House passed the economic stimulus bill in September, but the legislation appears to be stalled in the Senate. Perhaps, rightly so. If the money isn’t going to be used to make meaningful improvements to our nation’s decaying infrastructure and probably won’t create any new long-term jobs, there seems to be little reason for going forward with such a plan.”