Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood Offers His Prediction For Change
Monday, May 25, 2009DARREN GERSH: With more on the Obama administration's take on the stimulus plan, we're joined by Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. Let me ask you about the stimulus. We've talked to economists who say that they don't expect the full impact of the stimulus spending to show up until the fall. Is that what you expect? What do you expect?
RAY LAHOOD, TRANSPORTATION SECRETARY: I expect it to show up very soon here. The weather is just now getting to a point in many places in the country where we know there are not going to be any more snowstorms. We've had an enormous amount of rain, but very soon here, you're going to see an enormous number of people working around the country as the construction season really begins in America. And so an enormous number of people are going to be working. Infrastructure in America, for the first time in three of four years, will get a lot of attention and a lot of money. And I believe we're going to see construction job, unemployment numbers there, begin to go down dramatically.
GERSH: Now you've put out -- I think the Transportation Department has about $45 billion to spend.
LAHOOD: We have $48 billion.
GERSH: 48?
LAHOOD: Yes, sir.
GERSH: $48 billion to put out under the recovery plan. How is that money going out? Where is it being used?
LAHOOD: All -- we had a billion dollars for airports. It's all out the door. So there will be runway extensions and rebuilding runways. Highways and bridges, we've got billions of dollars out the door. That's where I think you'll really see a lot of jobs being created and a lot of people coming off of unemployment rolls. On our transit, we had $8 billion. That's for buses and buildings for transit districts. That money is just now going out the door. Again, I think you'll see transit districts either buying new buses or building new buildings. And so we're pushing the money out very, very quickly. We are complying with the letter of the law and Congress gave us some very, very short time tables here.
GERSH: I know there's a balance between getting it out the door fast and targeted. But there have been complaints that it's not very targeted, that's it's not going to areas that really need the money. It's not going to high-unemployment areas. It may be going to areas that are doing better that just have traffic jams and have projects that they need to work on. How would you address that concern, that it's not going where it's needed most?
LAHOOD: I think that's a very unfair evaluation of the program. I think it's not accurate. I think if you look at our map where the money is at, it's going to states like Michigan, that has 12 percent unemployment. And it's also going to states that maybe have a little bit lower unemployment. But people are now just beginning, in the states to award the contracts and people are coming off the unemployment rolls. And so I think if you look at a map and the distribution of the money, it's being distributed very fairly in both areas where there's high unemployment and areas where maybe it's less. Look, Michigan has one of the highest unemployment states (sic) in the country. Other states don't have that much. But the money is getting to the places where it's needed.
GERSH: The other concern is that it's not very transformative, that it's going to resurfacing roads, things that can be done quickly, but it isn't doing, maybe, what the president had hoped it might help do, which is lead to a transformation in our transportation system.
LAHOOD: Well, that's not accurate. In the bill, there's $8 billion for high-speed rail. That's $8 billion times more than we've ever had at the Department of Transportation. For the first time in the history of the country, we're about ready to launch -- in several corridors around the country -- high-speed rail opportunities, some money for studies, some money to put actual rail lines down corridors and we never had that opportunity. That's about as transformational and something that we haven't done at DOT or in this country and it's because of the president's leadership. He's the one that said we're going to have high-speed rail in America.
GERSH: All right, Mr. Secretary, thank you so much for your time.
LAHOOD: Thank you.
