Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Which Projects Will Be Funded by the Stimulus Bill?

President Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 into law yesterday at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. You can read about the signing in the Denver Post. You can find links to the full text of the legislation, the conference report, and congressional roll calls on the Library of Congress's THOMAS website.

According to the Post, President Obama claimed "the bill's mix of tax cuts, infrastructure projects, energy and education investments, and aid to the unemployed and poor would create or save 3.5 million jobs over the next two years, including roughly 60,000 in Colorado." Wondering what types of projects your state hopes will benefit from the $787 billion stimulus package? Stimulus Watch is a nongovernmental organization formed "to help the [Obama] administration keep its pledge and to hold public officials to account." Its website provides a list of proposed "shovel-ready projects" released by the U.S. Conference of Mayors.

The Stimulus Watch website allows you to search for project information by state, city, keyword, or program type and indicates each program's cost and the number of jobs it would create. The website also allows visitors to comment on these proposed projects. Note that these projects are not part of the stimulus bill, and they may or may not be funded by it. Stimulus Watch gives you an opportunity to find out what's being proposed so that you can contribute to the discussion on how taxpayer dollars are being used.

For more online resources, see our guide to Federal Contracts.

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