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While I certainly think that our bridges and roads need much attention, who exactly will be wanting to take these jobs? Who normally takes these jobs? So the 45 year old teacher out of work - do you want him or her to work on bridge work? First you must focus on who exactly is out of work and then try to determine how to infuse money into that field to get people back to work.
I am a restaurant owner. Over time, every town gets a sheer abundance of restaurants that simply cannot survive long-term. The failure rate with restaurant is 80 percent. So clearly this was NOT money well spent. Actually the hand writing was on the wall in the very beginning with many of these eateries. The only way restaurants stay alive is for customer to have jobs to afford to eat out. So no matter how good my food is I will not have any business if the economy continues to slide.
The money should be spent accelerating business sectors that will create jobs and thus keep the service industry alive.
I am not in favor of this depression era lift to rebuild infrastructure. In my neck of the woods, climate will minimize any work that could be done. We also had a ton of road/bridge work done this summer. So every state will have different needs I suspect. We have a large technology company that is laying off hundreds of workers this week. How about asking this company what it will take to zip start there production again with new projects that they probably have little money for now.
Lastly, as prices fall, I absolutely guarantee that some are watching those prices closely and will eventually snatch up the bargains and thus begins the cycle. Nobody wants to get left at the train station when the train is pulling out to recovery.
