A post on WhiteHouse.gov attributed to Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood attempts to rebut that damning AP report on transportation spending, but the rebuttal begins by . . . agreeing with the AP’s assessment! The thrust of LaHood’s counter is that, sure, the transportation piece of the stimulus isn’t creating a lot of jobs in the grand scheme, but the jobs it is creating (or saving) are really making a difference to the people who have them — as if anyone would argue otherwise!
You see, the highway and road construction industry totals about 258,000 jobs out of an overall national work force of 132 million jobs. If you’re keeping score at home, that means only two-tenths of one percent of the American employment is in highway and road work.
And, not only is transportation construction less than a percent of all employment, it’s also only a tiny sliver of the total construction picture.
The same can be said of transportation’s role in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Transportation stimulus dollars make up only 7% of that nearly $800 billion package. [Me: that works out to around $55 billion]
But, when we drill down to the transportation construction industry, the most appropriate basis for analysis, we find Recovery Act spending making a real difference in people’s lives.
No doubt, stimulus money spent on road construction is making a difference to people employed in road contruction. But if you’re “keeping score at home,” LaHood just admitted that, even if we credit the stimulus with saving every job in that industry, it cost U.S. taxpayers at least $213,000 per job.
This excuse is “shovel-ready,” Mr. Secretary – but by all means, keep digging.