[George Pazin]

I wonder if the concept of shame will ever make it back into the American culture.

'doubt it.

[RJ_Daley]

I have to lean towards Ian Larson's points of view. 

The buzz words in this entire bailout subject are transparency and accountability.  This list of requests by various city mayors runs the gammut of infrastructure from the culturally responsive to the inane.  There in lies the problem of doling out these vast sums of bailout funds.  Who and how are these programs to be monitored for transparency and accountability?  By the time any potential improprieties and improper use of funds comes to light, we will be years down the road and there is no mechanism anyway to recoup any improper losses.  How do you apply claw back to an irrigation system said to improve environmental quality via efficiency, and then find out that the bid award was rigged through and through with cronyism award to a contractor that put pieces of crap equipment in the ground and all made a killing?  Sad to say, that is and has always been the prevalent way with all these bailout and big government fund letting projects.  I just don't see the use of these bailout funds micro managed and properly oversighted when it comes to administering golf course upgrades that make both economic sense on a focused "greening" of golf maintenance practices environmentally speaking, and tracking the funds.

As to the other aspects of the romantic notions that a new WPA like project be used to upgrade urban golf along green space recreational opportunities as was done in the depression, I'm all for it in principle.  But as noted above, we aren't in the same place of socio-economic dislocation and desparation that was faced in the 30s.  We aren't at a place were vast populations of people were out of work with no prospects, and were litterally migratory in search of work (Grapes of Wrath like).  And, as noted above, will $10-15 dollar an hour public works jobs applied to modern techniques really suffice in putting a population of people back to work, and give them enough wages to start buying things made in a nationally made in USA as a stimulus in the real job intensive industries where the real action lies in job creation? 

WPA jobs were done by large work gangs, and were make work labor intensive and addressed the huge unemployed and migratory labor issues.  Perhaps some of the reason that those structures of those WPA projects stand the test of time is that they were so manually labor intensive that craftsmanlike details and quality were very high.  Today, if you are going to convert a landfil to a recreation field, the job is done by many labor saving machines.  The numbers of people in a work gang would be far less.  And, the time to do projects is cut way down, and so what do you end up paying the workers for how long in order to provide the stimulus needed.  It seems pretty feeble in terms of economic impact that is needed.

I've heard all manner of economists saying that the main thing is to get $$$ in the hands of consumers ASAP for the stimulus to work.  My thought is that even if they did the exagerated theory of mailing everyone a stimulus check of say $5000, to all who had incomes of <50K, those folks would merely go out and buy foreign made goods, which would only stimulate foreign industrial and labor intensive economies, and we'd be back to square one in no time at all. 

Giving 1 billion dollars at 2 million each to 500 golf courses to do with either what they want, or with environmental strings attached, wouldn't really tackle the economic woes of this country, IMHO.  All we'd have is more pissed off taxpayers eventually when the stories of graft corruption and cronyism start filtering in as to how inappropriately the $$ was really spent.

I'd say that all your hearts are in the right place for thinking about this subject, but man are there some devils in the details! 

[Steve Lang]

  Ian,

Frankly, your "Lewis Black outraged" thread moderator tone isn't really conducive to discussion here.. what'd I ever do to you, ruin your thread with one sentence?  You might want to reconsider that bitch slapping style..

p.s. and if i want to p.s. to paul, whom I know and have played golf with, and share professional interests with .. I will.. get over it.

p.s.s. i have been involved in environmental activities for over 40 years, as a HS student, college student, activist, wastewater & waste regulator, major industrial-environmental superintendent, and for the last 17 years consulting and working in the engineering and construction sector around the world and know a couple things about the world of chemicals from cradle to grave, regulatory affairs, and environmental impacts..

The Dayton Mayor's line item for $500,000 (the smallest request) is under the "water and wastewater infrastructure" category and will provide 7 jobs.. it is like dozens of other entries..  I have to wonder why your thread title didn't mention the askers for the big $millions?

Per the Conference of Mayor's Report..
Water and Wastewater Infrastructure – Local governments contribute 98 percent of the total investment in wastewater and 95 percent of the investment in water infrastructure.  Water and wastewater infrastructure grants would be used to assist with rehabilitating aging water and sewer infrastructure, complying with sewer overflow issues, and promoting source water protection and availability.

I remember that Dayton used to have an aquifer - water recovery program and had been quite progressive in past decades..

IT IS CLEARLY THE CITY THAT WILL MANAGE THESE $, WHY THE RANT?

WHY THE RANT ABOUT PRIORITIES?  Is the job putting insulation into an attic or filling a pot-hole or putting up a basketball hoop in a city park more important than a water infrastructure job that also has long term benefit?

Seems like they've ID'd quite a range of things "ready to go", and this list is only from 641 Mayors..

SECTOR / #PROJECTS / FUNDING /# JOBS
Community Development Block Grants for Infrastructure / 3253 / $19,474,124,552 / 299,762
Energy Block Grant for Infrastructure and Green Jobs / 1163 / $7,676,145,779 / 78,056
Transit Equipment and Infrastructure / 726 / $8,778,352,364 / 95,529
City Streets/Metro Roads Infrastructure / 3604 / $24,587,832,617 / 380,293
Airport Technology and Infrastructure / 486 / $4,489,454,297 / 37,082
Amtrak Infrastructure / 45 / $1,099,410,000 / 3,375
Water and Wastewater Infrastructure / 3343 / $18,940,871,816 / 190,510
School Modernization / 791 / $4,819,721,570 / 84,121
Public Housing Modernization / 568 / $2,256,930,175 / 18,794
Public Safety Jobs and Technology / 1242 / $4,515,576,142 / 34,155

p.s.s.s  there are some nice sand dunes in NW Ohio ..


from your quote: "The industry needs to become more responsible with what we have before we should get rewarded."  I have to assume you're in the golf industry?   If you have knowledge of continuing violations of  EPA regulations, you might want to think about the ethics of keeping quiet, the civil and criminal liability, and the nominal range of $10,000-$25,000 dollars per day per violation under FIFRA, RCRA, TSCA, and maybe the CWA, and definitely some other federal codes if false reports were sent to the EPA through the mail, and they want to through the book at you to make an example.. 

Why do you term any of these projects "rewards"?  Clearly in the water, and waste water world these $ would be supplementing local $.

p.s.s.s.s.   "Enviornmentally sound golf courses in Dayton"  you might want to change the spelling in your subject line

[Pete_Pittock]

Golf courses, casinos, museums, aquariums and a host of other targeted groups were just cut out of the stimulus package in a Senate vote on the Coburn amendment.

[tlavin]

This has been true for some time, but the current debate in the Senate unequivocally establishes that the national Republican party has run out of ideas.

[Sam Maryland]

Bill Seidman was head of the RTC last time around.  His observation on the current TARP/TARF/bad bank effort was:  "This is a horse built by committee and it looks like a camel".  I got a kick out of that. 

Reminds me of another quote by Bobby Knight: "I always figured if rape was inevitable you may as well lay back and enjoy it". 
Seems like about the best thing we could do...

...is go play golf.

PS - it's a long one, but if you get a chance to read The Power Broker by Caro, it is worthwhile (and topical).

[Mike McGuire]

Our course is pursuing an environmentally sound maintenance policy - on its own.

If we got a bailout check from the government, and it was my decision, I would  send it back.

This nonsense is getting more ridiculous every day.

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