Stimulus Spending Trickles In

[dtotire]

The Spending Trickle

In Maryland, which launched the first U.S. road project funded by the infusion of federal money, some people have gone back to wor

For Donavin Petre, 2009 started off as the worst of years. After he was laid off from his job as a diesel mechanic at a Baltimore truck shop in January, the first time he has been unemployed since he was 14, Petre found himself with no health insurance and no prospects for his family of three.


"It was terrifying," said Petre, 32, on a recent afternoon at his house in Edgemere, an industrial suburb of Baltimore. For months, with the recession getting worse, his daily job search went nowhere. "You're like, 'Oh man, just let us get through this without a trip to the hospital.' But a lot of places wouldn't even take a résumé. Nobody was hiring."

Then, 40 miles down the road, Congress passed the $787 billion stimulus package, and Maryland quickly launched the first road project in the United States funded with that money, repaving a bumpy stretch of New Hampshire Avenue in Silver Spring. Petre got lucky. A small piece of that $1.8 million project landed with a local sign company just as he came looking for work.

"They just hired me to put up signs, but, hey, if it feeds my family, I'll dig a hundred holes a week," he said. "Now when I go to bed, I know I have a job to go to."


more:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/23/AR2009052301634.html?hpid=topnews

[blue neen]

1. Road construction has already been going on in this area of PA.

It's frustrating sitting in traffic, but if it puts people to work--then it's worth it!

[donco6]

2. I used $250,000 of it in my school district.

Paid salaries of people who would have been laid off.