Last year, ARRA appropriated over $50 billion to infrastructure construction including highways, bridges, water/waste-water management and the Smart Grid. Additionally, the bill appropriated another $20 billion to energy efficiency building retrofits for federal, state and local buildings, and home weatherization initiatives. While 2/3rds of those dollars have been awarded, only 6.5% have made its way into the economy thus far.
Just last week, the Jobs Bill included another $20 billion in appropriations for highway and mass transit construction. What's next? In his recent state of the Union Address, the President called on Congress to fund Home Star, a $6 billion program for home energy efficiency retrofits, and earlier this month Senators Merkley and Pryor introduced legislation for Business Star, a similar program for Commercial Buildings.
The rampant spending is driven partially by larger socioeconomic considerations including encouraging energy efficiency, use of mass transportation, and renewable energy. More important, however, political considerations surrounding job creation and increasing the flow of private capital have taken over. Expect job creation to be priority #1 now that health care legislation is behind us. By some estimates, that $100 billion should drive an additional private investment of between $300 and $400 billion and create some 730k jobs. Construction and facilities is an easy target because these jobs cannot be outsourced internationally and can be created quickly.
You can find more details at: Recovery.gov , Jobs Bill , HomeStar , BusinessStar , Energy Efficiency Job Creation
