After Congress passed a $787 billion stimulus bill last month, President Obama is finding that this money is being put to use in ways that go against the priorities set by his administration. A fraction of the money ($27.5 billion) in the stimulus bill was set to be spent by the states under the category of transportation. For example, New Hampshire plans to use the money to widen a highway in order to make it easier for its southern residents to commute to Boston, where an increasing number are finding jobs. This improvement may sound great on paper, but when compared to Obama’s wishes for how the money should be spent, it doesn’t quite make the cut. Obama stressed a change in how the country views development as well as wean it off of dependence on foreign oil, to go along with environmental concerns. The need to spend stimulus money as fast as possible and create new jobs, however, makes for a clashing of priorities.
Obama gave the stimulus money to each state for them to spend on their own so that the money could be put to use quickly. One of the most prominent problems with this so far is that the states are using it to develop away from their most populous centers. Many argue that the money should be used to improve those areas that depend on transit or suffer from congestion on the streets. One place where this is a major debate right now is in Texas, most notably in the prairie lands that surround the city of Houston. The state is using the money given to them in the stimulus plan to build a 15-mile, four-lane toll road through the middle of a prairie around Houston, a job that will cost them $181 million.
Not only did this upset environmentalists in the Houston area, but it also shows how the states are abusing and mishandling the money given to them by the federal government. President Obama made public his opposition against sprawl, which is a term used to describe the expansion of urban environments into its surrounding rural setting, and encouraged officials to use “innovative thinking” when allocating the money. This is in fact the opposite of what Texas is doing. By creating this new highway around the city, sprawl is going to happen at a rapid pace. Obama said that the days of building endless sprawl are over; apparently Texas didn’t get the message. With an expected 21,000 new homes on 11,400 acres in this new development, Houston is going to expand more and more, effectively killing the wildlife and prairie environment outside of Houston and creating more sprawl. Also, innovation is seriously lacking in this instance. A new highway does nothing but increase our need for oil as more and more people will be driving their cars along this new road. Furthermore, as these developments are constructed away from the city of Houston, there will be more people settling far away from the main centers of employment, resulting in longer commutes for everyone. Texas did a poor job in this instance as the money could have (and should have) gone into solving problems affecting the city of Houston, including improving public transit, building new roads or modifying the old ones to reduce congestion, and helping the poorer sections of the city. Any of these alternatives would have fit better with Obama’s initial hopes for the stimulus bill where he stressed innovation to go along with environmental concerns. Here’s to hoping that the other states will put the money to better use.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/23/us/23sprawl.html?pagewanted=1
3 comments:
This stimulus spending may not be in line with what Obama would prefer but it is just the kind of spending that is necessary to build jobs. I personally cannot argue against any spending to widen the New Hampshire highways because I live just short on NH and use the highways frequently. Although this does not represent the “green” spending that Barack Obama may have been looking for it will certainly create construction jobs as well as increase efficiency in an area that is extremely congested. Many people must take worse jobs that are nearby because it is currently too hard to commute. While the majority of the state expenditures should be a little more creative some of these projects are necessary and truly beneficial to the residence in the area.
The planned construction in Houston may be necessary and beneficial to the national economy as Houston is currently the second fastest growing city in the nation. (http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?section=news/local&id=6719332) For a long period of time this has relied upon the nation’s energy companies that have headquarters in the city. If Obama is worried about self sufficiency then he should be thankful that this city is continuing to grow hopefully increasing the country’s ability to produce more of its own oil. Houston was actually awarded the top city to have a corporate facility project. In 2008 there were a total of 179 corporate real estate transactions alone creating countless jobs. The Bureau of Labor Statistics found that Houston was the number one city in America in job creation. Recent growth industries include air plane engineering, wind energy, and surprisingly enough real estate. In a city that if growing so noticeably it would be lax of the government to not support their growth by improving transportation around the city. Yes, sprawls may not be what the country is looking to spend its economic stimulus on but in an economy that needs growth it would be awful to hinder it.
http://www.houstongrowth.org/node/38
Obama can’t get mad at these states. He might have “encouraged” them to use the money in a certain way but he did not require them too. He might have been in a rush to get this money out to do good things but he still should have developed a game plan. Without a clear plan for the states, there’s no way his true intentions could have been carried out simply because they were not stated. If he’s unhappy now then that is his own fault. How you do things in the beginning of a presidency can set a precedent for the rest of the four years. By not fully developing plans, he’s not starting things off right.
Also, Obama’s future grand plans are great and all but let’s worry about the present. Right now our country is in desperate need of economic stimulation. We aren’t going to gain that from Obama’s focus on the green effort. The citizens need jobs. We are going to have no money to contribute to the green effort if our economy continues at this rate. When it comes down to it, the public is going to take new jobs being created over a new park. When the economy is stable once again, then let’s worry about making the country a little bit greener. And by that time, Obama might have a clear plan developed to eliminate the guessing game that the states are apparently getting wrong.
Both of you make the argument that this was the right thing to do given the bad economy of our country right now, that Houston should use the money to make it easier for the city to expand. Emily, you say that the we need jobs now and the focus on the green effort should be postponed until our economy stabilizes and we have money. Unfortunately, we are already in the green movement, and by embracing that and taking it to heart this country can clean itself up and pick up its economy at the same time. Jobs can be made by doing construction inside the city of Houston where so many people live, not outside the city so that a few people living outside can have an easier route to the city. Improvements on mass transit can be made so that more people can rely on buses and subways and don't have to use their cars all the time. This by itself would create jobs and be a small step in the green effort. Also, money could be used to improve the streets inside of Houston, as I mentioned before. There are multiple freeways in Houston that need repairing right now, and with the large and growing population, the city is going to need money to fix those roads in the future. Also, problems such as streetlights that are not synchronized can be solved with the stimulus money. Traffic can be caused due to the difference in timing of street lights, which seems like a silly thing to have to worry about. However, if Houston would take the time and money to take care of this problem, traffic could run smoother in the city, showing just another way the city can better itself by doing work INSIDE the city itself. Anything that you can do outside the city in terms of economic development, you can do inside the city. As Emily mentioned, people are looking for new job opportunities. This problem cab be attacked by implementing those same construction jobs and other developmental jobs within the city. This is what Obama was referring to when he used "innovative" to describe how the states should use the money. The right way to spend the money is not always the easiest. We can't simply continue to spread out our cities due to population growth. Otto also mentions that Houston's growth is a good thing because it can produce more of its own oil. The North American continent holds about 16% of the worlds oil reserve; everyone knows that oil is a finite source, and that its continued use is doing severe damage to our environment. Rather than spending more money on trying to obtain more oil, we should be using the money to develop alternative sources of energy, so that when the days comes where there is only a small amount of oil left, we don't have to worry about how this country is going to power itself or getting involved in an oil war. As I mentioned before, innovation should be at the forefront of everyone's mind right now in this country, because without it we are going to stay stuck in this rut.
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