It appears we’re going to spend upwards of $500 billion on a stimulus package focused heavily on rebuilding the crumbling U.S. infrastructure. That’s all to the good. The broader economy desperately needs a large cash infusion, and our infrastructure is in notoriously bad shape for a developed nation. But both the writing of the stimulus bill itself and the actual disbursement will, and must, happen very, very fast. So you have to wonder, do we know how to spend that money effectively? Or will a not-trivial percentage of it be wasted?
One legacy of the past generation, accelerated greatly under the Bush administration, is a breakdown of accountability in both government spending and contracting. More government work of all stripes is done by private firms. This has in turn weakened the structural clout and morale of the civil service. Obama, to his credit, has pledged to address these problems. But that’s a long-term project. It won’t happen in the next eight weeks. It’s a perverse joke I suspect we’ll be seeing more of as the transition moves forward: if “you go to war with the army you have,” Obama will be doing battle on the faltering economy with an “army” whose ranks were assembled by the Bush administration.
So, how will this massive pile of cash be spent? How will we determine who gets say, the money spent rebuilding bridges and highways, or building wifi or broadband networks? And then, how will we keep track to see if it’s well-spent? I’m sure we’ll be hearing more about this – it will be of course be Obama’s first big test. And sadly, the stakes are so high that if if “works” or fails, these operational questions may not matter anyway.
