Somebody correct me if my thinking is incorrect, but the claimed “jobs being created” for these projects is largely bogus. For at least the infrastructure work, most of the construction will be carried out by people already having state jobs.
For instance, let me just pull a random infrastructure project off a list - Road Resurfacing and Reconstruction, Selected Roads, in Auburn AL, for 10 million big ones. It says that 35 jobs will be created. This is not true, however. What will happen is that the project will temporarily occupy 35 personnel from either the Alabama Dept. of Transportation, or the local county or municipal equivalent. No job is being created, we merely have gubmint jobs being preserved by massive infusions of tax dollars.
I’m in a city that, interestingly enough, hasn’t put in for any of the ‘free money’. Essentially, it’s because we don’t approve projects unless we have the money to pay for them. And, we took them at their word, and thought ‘shovel ready’ meant ‘shovel ready’.
Most of these projects are in the ‘wouldn’t it be nice to have’ stage, meaning they’ll have to go through the design process, done, as you surmise, primarily by municipal employees. Then there’ll be the permitting stage, the environmental review, the interfacing with other agencies, and finally the bidding stage. Once the bidding is awarded, the actual construction can begin. So, the administration really doesn’t have to be concerned about their stated concerns that they didn’t want the money to go to white male construction workers. It won’t get there for a long, long, time.