Explaining the failure of stimulus

[Jamisjockey]

Houston ISD recieved cash to hire 128 teachers in 2009.  Enough cash to last......almost two years.  HISD was hoping the state would pick up the tab and make them permanant jobs.  The state has a budget shortfall and can't.
So, they will be laid off soon.
Government does not create jobs.

[MechAg94]

But you are not focusing on the right metrics.  The Bureaucracy at just about every level got a cut of that money as it was passed down to the local HISD to hire those teachers.  Success!

[Chuck Dye]

100,000 new cops, anyone?

[AZRedhawk44]

Houston ISD recieved cash stolen from taxpayers across the entire State of Texas to hire 128 teachers in 2009.  Enough cash to last......almost two years.  HISD was hoping the state would pick up the tab continue to use threat of force to tax the entire State and subsidize one metro area that doesn't want to pay for its own expenditures and make them permanant jobs.  The state has a budget shortfall and can't.
So, they will be laid off soon.  The situation has been remedied, though the original theft for the pay for those teachers for 2 years has not been addressed.
Government does not create jobs.

Translated and fixed.

[Tallpine]

Yeah but look at all the wonderful highway improvements 

I-80 westbound west of Chicago is terrible.  There is barely enough pavement to hold the potholes together. 

[lee n. field]

There is barely enough pavement to hold the potholes together.  sad

That's Illinois roads in general.

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

There are stretches of highway in Kentucky that got repaved for no reason at all except that they suddenly had the money to do it.  Perfectly good road bed was torn up and replaced with perfectly good new roadbed.

[Gowen]

Yeah but look at all the wonderful highway improvements 

I-80 westbound west of Chicago is terrible.  There is barely enough pavement to hold the potholes together. 

That's Illinois roads in general.

That's perfectly good re-election, payoff and bribery money.  Who'd a thought of actually using the money to fix the roads.

[brimic]

That's perfectly good re-election, payoff and bribery money.  Who'd a thought of actually using the money to fix the roads.

From my understanding, the money taken in from toll roads in IL is barely enough to pay the $40/hr wages for the slugs in the toll booths let alone pay for any road maintenance anymore.

[Tallpine]

From my understanding, the money taken in from toll roads in IL is barely enough to pay the $40/hr wages for the slugs in the toll booths let alone pay for any road maintenance anymore.

That was my observation going through there for the first and last* time, though I suppose most commuters have the auto-pay thingie and just drive through without stopping.

Next time: UP 

[HankB]

There are stretches of highway in Kentucky that got repaved for no reason at all except that they suddenly had the money to do it.

Incorrect.

The money spent doesn't literally get flushed down the sewer, it ends up in someone's pocket. No doubt there are plenty of union heavy equipment operators, asphalt suppliers, surveyors, etc., who got a nice piece of that money.

There's also no doubt that some was shared with politicians in the form of stock dividends (thanks to part ownership of asphalt suppliers by extended family), campaign contributions from the heavy equipment operator's union, and so forth and so on.

So you see, there were probably a lot of very good reasons to do so.

[Bogie]

You know, if instead of doing all the $400k/job "stimulus," they had done a lot of small business grants, I'm guessing that enough of them would have worked that we'd be seeing some nicely positive growth...