Route 650, Stimulus Math, and Sustainability

There was a CNN news item today that got me to thinking about the stimulus package. Briefly the article reported on the first infrastructure repair projected as part of the $787 billion stimulus bill. The project involves repairs to Maryland Route 650. Apparently the road has not been repaired for some years and is heavily traveled. The firm that won the repair contract, America Infrastructure, will apparently hire some 60 people to do the work. It should take some 6 months and America Infrastructure hopes that it will be possible to retain those workers as they bid on additional projects. Said projects being part of some $27 billion in recently released stimulus infrastructure projects.

All of this seems fairly reasonable. However, consider the following. The US has a total population of something less than 300 million living in something around 100 million households according to the US Census Bureau. When you do the math, the stimulus bill is almost $3000 per person or $8000 per household! That's a LOT of money particularly in view of America Infrastructure's "hopes" that it will be possible to retain 60 highway workers after completion of the Route 650 project, said "hopes" being contingent on winning additional contracts.

In a fundamental way that's one of the valid criticisms of the stimulus bill. Mind you, I'm not sure it's a correct criticism, only that it makes sense. As a country, we're going to spend a lot of money doing some things that will provide work to a few people for a short time. What we need though is to do things that will provide work for a lot of people for the rest of their working life. Now while the Route 650 project will doubtless improve Route 650 how do we engage sustained maintenance of all the other Route whatevers that need maintenance.

It seems to me just common sense that we also need to change how we pay for and maintain infrastructure so that infrastructure related jobs outlive the stimulus bill. That in turn brings to mind issues surrounding the Highway Trust Fund, but that's a topic for another day.