Spending the Stimulus

Now the real wrangling begins!  Mayors, state legislators, and governors are gearing up for battles at home and between states for their piece of the stimulus money.  Will the money go for local road repair and improvements or to shore up interstate highways?  Will the money land in poor urban school districts or in wealthier suburban neighborhoods?  Will states who have already begun investing in alternative energy technologies get more than states who are just starting to pursue these policies?  Will GOP governors who vowed to turn down stimulus money actual follow through?

Open Left and our Homelessness blogger Shannon have digestible summaries of the stimulus bill, which is expected to be signed tomorrow by President Obama.  There are Buy America provisions in the bill, which I'm ambivalent about, emergency stabilization money for short-term rental assistance (yay!  though it ain't enough), penalties for states who planned to cut Medicaid rolls as a means to balance budgets (interesting), and a provision for governors to spend the stimulus money in 45 days - a rhetorical provision that ups the ante on those aforementioned grandstanding governors.

One of the line items I like the most is the $6.3 billion for repairing and retrofitting the 1M+ public housing properties nationwide.  This is a small victory for public housing authorities, who've seen their capital and operating budgets eviscerated under Reagan, constrained under Clinton (demolition programs such as HOPE VI brought more money to public housing than anything else), and slashed once more under Dubya.  Billions of dollars for modernization of properties that were mostly built between the 1930s and 1960s is terrific and long overdue.

Getting back to the political battles over process of stimulus allocations, I'd like to hear from you.  What would you like to see the stimulus go to in your town/city/country/region?  I grew up in a Boston suburb that had pretty terrible roads.  The potholes are still legion.  How could that town get some money to improve roads?  Or is that a too small and recurring (with our Boston winters) problem?  I know in my current Boston neighborhood, we have a vacancy rate of less than 2%, and our affordable housing options are miniscule as well.  The state (and city) has just launched a (non-stimulus related) program buying up foreclosed properties that they will then grant to developers - including non-profits - for rehabilitation.   With $2B in stimulus money forthcoming for similar neighborhood stabilization efforts, are projects like this possible where you live?  What would you like to see happen in your communities?