Obama: Stimulus is starting to work

Washington —- President Barack Obama said Monday the $787 billion economic stimulus plan is beginning to take hold and that work is coming in “ahead of schedule and under budget.”

Standing alongside Vice President Joe Biden and Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood at the agency, Obama highlighted the administration’s 2,000th project funded through the $48.1 billion part of the program allocated specifically to transportation infrastructure projects.

“What is most remarkable about this effort … isn’t just the size of our investment or the number of projects we’re investing in. It’s how quickly, efficiently and responsibly those investments have been made,” Obama said. “Because these projects are getting approved more quickly than we thought … and because these projects are costing less than we thought, we can utter a sentence rarely heard in recent years: This government effort is coming in ahead of schedule and under budget.”

He asserted that the package is “beginning to work,” crediting with spurring a rehiring of workers at clean energy companies, police departments canceling planned layoffs and clinics planning to expand health care.

Some 120 million families are taking home larger pay checks because of tax cuts in the measure, Obama said, while plans are under way to rebuild crumbling roads and bridges, modernize airports and shipyards, develop high-speed rail networks and restore aging public transit systems.

Obama won quick passage of his $787 billion economic stimulus plan shortly after taking office, using the argument that the plan would put Americans back to work on public projects.

Transportation department officials say that because so many contractors want a share of stimulus money, competition is driving down costs by about 15 percent to 20 percent. For instance, officials said Colorado’s first five projects were 12 percent lower than anticipated and Oregon’s are 30 percent lower.

In Georgia, Gov. Sonny Perdue last week gave the go-ahead for the state to accept more than $200 million in stimulus funds for 67 specific road projects.

That money is just part of an overall package that will bring nearly $1 billion in stimulus funds to the state for road and bridge work.

On Thursday, a committee of the Atlanta Regional Commission recommended that up to $25 million in stimulus funds be used to help MARTA pay its operating expenses so the strapped transit agency won’t have to shut down service one day a week.

That proposal now faces other ARC votes and may require the governor’s approval.