Stimulus Spending

Today in the National Post John Ivison hypothesizes that there may be a stimulus "boondoggle" in the near future, on two different fronts. One on poor decisions for infrastructure funding and the other on a potentially disproportionate distribution of funds to Conservative ridings.

On the main charge that a 150 student private school in Helena Guergis riding received half a million dollars when proposals for similar public projects were rejected; I am not going to pretend that half a million dollars for 150 kids to have a soccer field was a sound decision. Stimulus spending should be distributed such as to spread the greatest amount of utility to the most people. If you rewind to the main drafting and passing of the federal budget, it only took about a week for the Liberals to start complaining about the money not getting out fast enough.

I think I said it best in January when I blogged:

"Mr. Ignatieff also demands that we get this stimulus money into the economy lickity split. Knowing the amount of time and planning that goes into large infrastructure and construction projects, I would ask the government to proceed with caution rather than haste. Rushing this “Manhattan project” without the proper planning could quickly and easily blow up in our collective faces with astounding force. The Liberal party does not want their fingerprints on the murder weapons if global conditions deteriorate or if the stimulus package goes Chernobyl; and blindly hastening it only increases the probability that it does. The Liberal Party seems content to restrict their demands to simple thumbs up or thumbs down every couple of months; which I suppose is the benefit of being in Opposition and not having to bear the burden of actually piloting the Hindenburg across the Atlantic."

Bad decisions were destined to be made before ever a dime was allotted to any project. And the faster we jammed it through, the more mistakes there would be. Was the Collingwood project a bad decision? I don't know, not my riding. I visited there once on a class trip in grade 7. That great slide ride was a blast! We need more great slide rides. If a large proportion of the constituents are not happy, then perhaps the government should take a mulligan on that one.

On the Gerard Kennedy charge that disproportionate funds are going to Tory ridings, should anyone be surprised? Really? By the way, am I the only one who thinks it is hilarious how Gerard has been stuck in the corner of the room, and does not have the backdrop of concerned and applauding MPs when he addresses the House, like it is his punishment for that Dion abortion. I'm certain that if you totaled up the combined history of democracies where elected officials serve on behalf of a geographic area, that they send projects back to their constituents because those are the people they are in parliament to serve. Assuming that they live in those ridings (or even if they are just visiting like Elizabeth May on Vancouver Island), then they should know their own turf better than ridings that they don’t represent. If forced to speed up the distribution, diminishing the vetting process, elected representatives can be most certain of the efficiency of spending in the riding they represent. I’m not sure if that last sentence made any sense, but it does in my brain. I am now finished my coffee and I must be on my way to work. “I’m just a regular Joe with a regular job; I’m your average white suburbanite slob”