Overshadowed by the pirate rescue mission, the Easter Egg Roll, and the new Obama puppy, the little reported news is that the stimulus package may actually be, well, working.
That, of course, is enough to make a Republican strategist to tear their hair out. But the worst part of the story?
The bill's projects are coming in under budget
Oh my. This HAS to be good news for John McCain, right?
Little noticed this afternoon was President Obama's second trip of his term to the Department of Transportation where he gave remarks on the progress of the stimulus projects so far. The highlight was the announcement that they have already approved 2,000 (!) stimulus projects in just 41 days.
But the kicker was this little nugget:
Today, because these projects are getting approved more quickly than we thought, thanks to in large part the outstanding work of the TIGER team and folks here at the Department of Transportation, and because these projects are costing less than we thought, we can utter a sentence rarely heard in recent years: This government effort is coming in ahead of schedule and under budget.
Need details? Obama had them:
And that's why I'm pleased to hear that in state after state across America, competition for these projects is so fierce, and contractors are doing such a good job cutting costs, that projects are consistently coming in under budget. The final bid for one road project in Connecticut was $8.4 million less than the state budgeted for. Another one in Louisiana was $4.7 million less. (Diarist's note: Take THAT, Gov. Jindal!) A project at BWI Airport will be completed for $8 million less than expected. Bids for projects in North Carolina have been 19 percent under budget. Colorado is reporting bids up to 30 percent less than they expected. And the officials in California have seen bids that are close to half as much as they had projected.
Obama projected a creation of 150,000 jobs by the end of the year from the transportation projects alone. One wonders how all these projects created jobs AND came in under budget. After all, wasn't this supposed to be the awful debt creating monster of a stimulus package the Republicans worried about? That wouldn't create any jobs at all? That would sink us as a country?
Well, I've got a theory as to why they are under budget, and I can sum it up in one word: transparency. See, bids tend to me more realistic, money tends to be spent more wisely and prudently, and you tend to get more bang for your buck when every state in the union has to tell the American people how the money is going to be spent...on inter-tubes, no less. (UPDATE: And combine that with, as people have rightly pointed out, more bids, less costs, more willingness to get projects to put people to work, while in a down economy...and you have a perfect storm of getting more bang for our stimulus buck.)
So while the media rah-rahs the rescue, ogles Bo the PWD, and watches the kiddies roll the Easter eggs, give me this story now and twice on Sunday.
Because it actually shows how government can work for the people.
And make a wingnuts head explode.
That's a two-fer of change I can believe in.