Remember that unordered, un-prioritized $7.4 billion infrastructure wish list we wrote about earlier this week? Yeah. So much for that.
The San Diego Association of Governments had drafted a plan demonstrating the kind of local construction projects that would benefit from a swift influx of federal stimulus spending.
While the region could potentially still tap some federal money, the economic stimulus plan being proposed by President-elect Barack Obama and Congressional Democrats contains only a fraction of the infrastructure funding that was once discussed.
The New York Times says House Democrats have outlined what’s in the plan:
The plan includes $90 billion in infrastructure spending, including highway construction and repair, water projects and environmental restoration, and public transportation investments like rail lines.
That’s nowhere near the $600 billion to $1 trillion that had once been discussed for infrastructure spending. The entire package as proposed today is $825 billion but includes other forms of stimulus spending targeting education, Medicaid and renewable energy.
We have a call into Sandag for their thoughts.