The first wave of ARRA (stimulus) spending was just dollars out the door – tax cuts and saving state and local services. It served the purpose of stopping the free fall and keeping us out of a depression, but otherwise didn’t contribute much to the future. And I’m not sure what good the “cash for clunkers” or $8,000 down payment money for first-time home buyers did, although they probably didn’t hurt anybody.
Now we’re moving into investments. The money for highway repairs you saw starting this summer, and for mass transit, are 20 years overdue and vital if we’re to stay a first-world nation.
But the real impact will be from funds spread through various federal agencies that have worked through the bureaucracy and have started to emerge as RFPs that will have longer-lasting effects. These will probably be awarded this fall and may be spent over the next one to three years. I’m currently working on two stimulus grants. One is part of $1 billion from National Institutes for Health to modernize laboratories and research facilities. If our grant is funded, it will leapfrog the small agency I’m working with 10 years ahead of where they could get on their own. The other is Department of Labor training grants which have a major component for training nurses and medical support personnel. Health care is being hampered by, among other things, the nursing shortage, so this fits into a larger picture.
I’m not tracking all of the ARRA RFPs by any means, but from what I understand the agencies are on one hand making long-overdue investments and on the other are overwhelmed by the sheer volume of programs and proposals.
What are you seeing in your fields?