Stimulus Watch: Top 10, Bottom 10 States--Highway Funds Under Contract
The latest monthly update from the House Transportation and infrastructure Committee, released March 4, shows that states have 73.1% of their $26.8 billion in ARRA formula highway funds under contract, as of Jan. 31. That’s up from 66% as of Dec. 31.
Results have been even stronger in stimulus-act Clean Water State Revolving Funds, which finance wastewater-treatment projects. As of Jan. 31, 96.1% of the $4 billion ARRA provided was under contract. In addition, 31 states had all of their Clean Water SRF under contract.
For highway funding, the pace of turning ARRA funding allotments into contracts varies by state--sometimes dramatically.
The fastest-spending states, in the ARRA highway and bridge category, are:
(ARRA dollars under contract, in percent)
Maine: 100.0%
Wyoming 100.0
Pennsylvania: 99.7
Iowa: 97.7
Utah: 96.2
South Dakota: 93.5
New Hampshire: 91.8
West Virginia: 90.8
Mississippi: 90.1
Vermont: 90.0
The slowest-spending highway states are:
Hawaii: 42.5%
Nevada: 44.7
Virginia: 46.6
Ohio: 50.3
Delaware: 53.3
Louisiana: 55.9
Massachusetts: 55.9
California: 58.7
Oregon: 59.9
Texas: 63.1
[Source: House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee]
Great note Tom. We wrote about this last week:<br/><a href="http://www.valanduseconstructionlaw.com/2010/03/articles/economy/stimulus-funds-dripping-not-pouring-in-virginia/" rel='nofo...
http://www.valanduseconstructionlaw.com/2010/03/articles/economy/stimulus-funds-dripping-not-pouring-in-virginia/
I think this confirms my suspicions ... if Virginia only has 46% under contract, my estimates on what has actually been paid out may be correct.
It seems to me, if the federal government really wanted to do something about the unemployment problem they could simply and permanently in probably 90 days...<br/><br/>Every legal work...
Every legal worker has a federal number of some sort... that number is in a national data base... Every Employer has a number too, also in a data base... Every Employer is already legally responsible for NOT hiring Illegal Aliens, but, they are not required to be experts on documentation... Everyone has access to the internet one way or another...
If the fed hooked the Employee Numbers Data base up to the internet with some algorithms... and made every employer register every employee online... the data base would be able to instantly find workers with non-existant numbers or dupicate numbers, which shows forged documents...
The gameplan would be, warn all employers that in 2 weeks anyone with forged documents will be removed from thier jobsite for verification... a week later tell the general public to start putting in applications anywhere they would like to work... then start the program...
The computer would automatically produce a warrant for the arrest of all suspected forged document users and send it to the local law enforcement agency... the law enforcement officers would pick up and lightly book everyone, starting with fingerprints... if the fingerprints check that person is taken back to the jobsite... anyone that cannot be proven the rightful owner of the number, gets processed through to deportation or whatever,
Meanwhile Americans go back to work, permanently!!!
I would have no problem losing a half days work if someone stole my Social Security Number Illegally...
And where would they get the money for the program... they're already spending it on stop-gap methods
