On Sun, 18 Jan 2009 11:14:28 -0500, Eisboch wrote:

"thunder" wrote in message
t...
On Sun, 18 Jan 2009 10:54:24 -0500, BAR wrote:


This highway work should have been occurring for the last 40 years due
to it being funded by federal gasoline and diesel taxes.


Yup, there's been lots of infrastructure neglected. Hopefully, this
stimulus package will kill two birds, get the economy moving again, and
fix our crumbling bridges, and roads.

Hopefully it will be structured and managed differently than the WPA
projects that Roosevelt initiated.
I was reading recently that problems with them included waste,
inefficiency, cost overruns and late schedules.
Because it was a federally backed program designed to hire unemployed
workers, the jobsite foremen had no authority to discipline or fire
slackers.

It's my understanding that the WPA was a jobs program, not really an
infrastructure package. If I'm not mistaken, the workers were considered
Federal employees. Some of the projects were down right silly, but they
did keep people fed.

This time around, I believe most of the moneys will be to private sector
employers. When FDR started the WPA, he was on new ground. Obama has
the advantage of 70 years of hindsight. Hopefully, it will work out.