Stimulus watching as a lifestyle is boring. I’d rather be motorcycle riding, but none-the-less how our tax $$ get spent has reached the Northwest Harley Blog.
The blog theme isn’t changing. There are lots of sources for stimulus-related blogging that serious government-watchers can find. However, coffee drinking colleagues down at ‘bucks’ started tracking stimulus as part of their retirement concerns and because I’ve put energy into promoting Vet’s and Veteran Motorcycle Association topics in the past, I wanted to forward this information.
Nobody does spending plans—complete with color-coded spreadsheets and embossed covers full of eagles and seals and other important looking symbols—like the U.S. military. Check this report out (.pdf). The stimulus bill, by the way, became law on February 17, 2009. The Pentagon plan was released on March 20th, right on the deadline.
You may recall the Recovery Act includes approximately $7.4B in Defense-related appropriations, which accounts for less than 1% of the total $787B stimulus package. In the stimulus bill, Congress allocated $2.3B in construction funds to the Department of Defense. The surprising part is what the specific provisions require: No war-fighting facilities, but rather the construction of “child development centers,” “warrior transition complexes,” hospitals, family housing, renewable-energy projects, and, in general, infrastructure for the Pentagon’s softer and earth-friendly side of the business. In part, they are going to put soldiers and their families ahead of big-ticket technology—or at least on equal footing and the Department intends to spend this funding with unprecedented transparency and accountability.
For those with military experience you might agree that given all its failures to live up to soldiers and their families, and for all of its catch-22 double-speak, anyone who walks around inside the U.S. military quickly sees that it is one of the best-run bureaucracies in the federal system. The website, www.Recovery.gov, is the main vehicle to provide everyone with the ability to monitor the progress of the recovery. The DoD also has a website HERE, which links to Recovery.gov.
The DoD intends to spend its funds as quickly as possible in the following categories:
- $4.2 billion in Operation and Maintenance accounts to improve, repair, and modernize DoD facilities, including energy-related improvements
- $1.3 billion in military construction for hospitals
- $240 million in military construction for child development centers
- $100 million in military construction for warrior transition complexes
- $535 million for other military construction projects, such as housing for the troops and their families, energy conservation, and National Guard facilities
- $300 million to develop energy-efficient technologies
- $120 million for the Energy Conservation Investment Program (ECIP)
- $555 million for a temporary expansion of the Homeowner’s Assistance Program (HAP) benefits for private home sale losses of both DoD military and civilian personnel
- $15 million for DoD Inspector General oversight and audit of Recovery Act execution
I did a quick scan (.pdf) for Northwest based projects and notice Camp Withycombe, OR will get a Storm Sewer MILCON upgrade and the Naval Air Station on Whidbey Island, WA will have a new Water Distribution System & Energy Conservation. There are several other projects embedded into the document specific to the northwest if you have a desire for more detail.
Photo courtesy DoD and blogger Steve Coll.
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