Expert: Stimulus Job Creation Hits Wall of Red Tape
Friday, March 6, 2009 4:05 PM
By: Dave Eberhart

An expert reports that after racing the stimulus package through Congress, the administration has allowed key programs to run into a brick wall of bureaucracy and business as usual – dangerously delaying the job creation touted to be at the heart of the recovery.

Congress was bullied to speed through the passage of the immense American Recovery and Reinvestment Act as if every minute of delay drained the economy’s life’s blood, now things have crawled to a snail’s pace, laments Dr. Ronald D. Utt, senior research fellow in the Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies at the Heritage Foundation.

At the heart of the dramatic bait-and-switch, says Utt, are all the administration’s claims of immediate economic activity through infrastructure spending.

While frantically stumping for his stimulus plan, President Barack Obama told an audience in Elkhart, Indiana: “Economists from across the spectrum have warned that if we don’t act immediately, millions of more jobs will be lost… [W]e can’t afford to wait…â€