Tell me: What image do the words "shovel ready" conjure in your mind? Personally, I picture someone wearing a hard hat hunched over a bit of groundwork, shovel in hand, ready to start digging at the word "go."
Clearly my imagination has taken some creative license with the "shovel ready" concept President Obama articulated so often in discussing the stimulus package. But I suspect a majority of the American public expected work to begin on infrastructure projects within weeks of him signing the bill into law. And yet here we are, almost 100 days later, and only a fraction of the projects have broken ground. So what gives?
Well..."shovel ready" doesn't really mean "ready for shovels" -- at least not right away. It means the projects have all the paperwork in order -- environmental impact studies, right of way clearance -- and just need the money to bid on contractors. But that bidding process takes time (and I'm sure taxpayers are glad the government isn't sanctioning no-bid contracts). First you need to send out a request for proposals, then you need to select the best contractor and only once you've awarded the contract can the winning company begin its work. Even with speeding up the process, all of that takes at least two months and under normal conditions more like five or six.
So was it fair to call these projects "shovel ready"? Many in the government and contracting community would say yes, but I'm not so sure. True, "shovel ready" has a nicer ring to it than "bid ready," but I think the latter is closer to the truth. Then again, when a bill has a $787 billion price tag, I guess "bid ready" doesn't sell.
Comments
Very good story, if a little shorter than I would have liked. So far, I like most of Dana Bate's reports. She has almost always done a good job of reporting the facts of a story, not just somebody's opinion that may involve much speculation or a hidden motivation, especially in Washington. To Dana and the whole Washington bureau, keep up the good work!