They are shoveling it, but ‘shovel ready’ isn’t what you think

“Shovel ready”. Within weeks of his election, (then) President-elect Obama was interviewed by Tom Brokaw on Meet the Press. It was during that interview on December 7, 2008 that the buzzword “shovel ready” was introduced as means of describing construction projects that have advanced to the stage that laborers could be hired immediately to begin work on a project, and quickly reduce our country’s unemployment rate, as a result. Of course, these “shovel ready” projects, such as the construction of roads and bridges, needed funding from the $787 billion stimulus package (passed last February), and the country would then save (or create, it was thought) 3.5 million American jobs, according to (then) President-elect Obama.
And so it began. “Shovel ready” became a nonsensical, feel-good mantra for every politician supporting the federal stimulus package, one of the largest single government expenditures in U.S. history. The phrase was so overused, in fact, that the Lake Superior State University recently added the phrase to its annual “List of Words to Be Banished from the Queen’s English for Mis-use, Over-use and General Uselessness”. Incidentally, there were other Obama administration-like catch phrases that qualified for the 35th annual listing, such as “transparent/transparency”, “czar”, “teachable moment”, and “stimulus”.
So, why the apparent uselessness of the term “shovel ready”? Partly because there is no formal definition. Partly because even the Federal Highway Administration doesn’t even use the term. But mainly because, according to the Associated Press’ recent analysis, there is nearly no connection between stimulus money and the number of construction workers hired or fired, for purportedly “shovel ready” projects, since Congress passed the recovery program last year.
Even though President Obama, as recently as last week, was telling Americans that the economy was growing again, the latest data indicates that construction employment declined in 324 out of 337 U.S. metropolitan areas over the past year, despite the available stimulus funding for “shovel ready” projects.
The unemployment rate in the construction industry continues to rise. It is nearly 20% currently. And although residential and commercial building contractors employ the bulk of the nation’s construction industry, the “shovel ready” projects, such as roads and bridges, can be performed only by a handful of contractors who own the expensive, heavy equipment needed for such projects. So while dozens of jobs may be saved or created because of the federal stimulus funding for roads and bridges, tens of thousands of skilled workers are being laid off from our nation’s residential and commercial building contractors. In fact, despite the federal stimulus, business bankruptcy filings in Louisiana increased by almost 40% in 2009 and individual bankruptcies increased by more than 18% over the previous year’s numbers as well. And to add insult to injury, construction wage rates are expected to decline in 2010.
Where is the “stimulus” effect? Hotel construction is down 46%. Retail and warehouse building is down 41%. Office construction is down 39%. Since the 2008 election, overall construction spending has dropped by $137 billion. Even for the architects (and other design professionals), who would prepare the drawings for the “shovel ready” projects, their personnel capacity to produce those projects has shrunk now by 10% since 2008.
And as if the ineffectual, wasteful stimulus spending wasn’t enough, the Obama administration has now rescinded the Bush administration’s policy of evaluating transportation projects based on a cost-benefit analysis. Now, instead of evaluating transportation projects based on costs, the decisions to fund transportation projects will be based on the degree to which a transportation project promotes “livability”. Not sure what “livability” means? Don’t worry. It will soon likely be on the same list of generally useless words, such as “czar” or “teachable moment”.
And if there is anyone out there that believes that the fallacies employed by our federal government, by funding $787 billion for “shovel ready” projects won’t be repeated by this same federal government that wants to take over our healthcare industry, please wake up. If this administration’s goal was to spend $787 billion to save (or create) 3.5 million American jobs, and yet the administration’s own data indicates that they only achieved 40% of their goal (or 1.5 million American jobs), and when every measurable economic statistic indicates a worsening of the conditions that $787 billion was thought to cure, what kind of results do liberals expect that the federal government will produce when they begin managing our nation’s healthcare system, which represents 15.3% of our nation’s gross domestic product?
The problem wasn’t that the Congressional Democrats and the Obama administration weren’t “shovel ready” last year. They were. The problem is that the majority of American people, now even in liberal Massachusetts, are realizing that they just don’t need any more of what those folks have been shoveling.

Louis R. Avallone is a Louisiana contractor and attorney. He is also a former aide to U.S. Representative Jim McCrery and editor of The Caddo Republican. Follow Louis on Facebook, on Twitter @ louisravallone, or by email at HYPERLINK “mailto:louisavallone@mac.com” louisavallone@mac.com.