“It’s not smart spending, but we’ll take the money”

Posted by Marc Hodak on May 11, 2009 under Politics, Unintended consequences | Be the First to Comment

Residents in Greenwood, Ind., planned to widen a road leading to I-69 in hopes of attracting businesses, Mayor Charles Henderson said. Instead, a regional authority gave the city $1.2 million in federal stimulus funds to build a pedestrian trail bridge over a road. “It does not stimulate long-term economic development, but we’re going to take that money,” he said.

Most people admitted that trying to quickly spend $780 billion just to spend it would yield some inefficiencies.  One of the many things the bill writers didn’t consider is how the raw amount of money offered in different ways to states and cities would interact to place different hands in the same pocket.

Charlotte received far less than that — about $4 million from the stimulus funding for road refurbishing — only to learn that the state would take back nearly $4 million it had planned to provide to the city in highway funds…

In Rhode Island, Providence Mayor David N. Cicilline, a Democrat, said city schools were happy to get about $10.2 million in federal money. Then the state Legislature cut state school aid by the same amount. “It clearly undermines the intention” of the stimulus legislation, Mr. Cicilline said.

And how are state governments deciding where to give and take these funds?

Pat McCrory, Charlotte’s mayor, charges that states often hand out federal dollars “by politics and not by need.”

Perhaps Charlotte is not exactly Chicago, but c’mon.  Mayor McCrory cannot be such a political neo-phyte that he is actually stating this in surprise.