In Connecticut “shovel-ready” is drastically in need of clarification.
The stimulus package is intended to provide new money for projects, not replace existing funding. That creates another problem, local leaders said. Any project within 90 to 120 days of starting – the common definition of shovel-ready – would already be permitted and into the bid process.
”Most towns don’t do that until the funds are already in place,” Mark Oefinger, Groton Town Manager, said.
Or, as Richard Guggenheim, assistant director of the Southeastern Connecticut Council of Governments, said during an interview Thursday: “It’s the ultimate Catch-22 on steroids.”
Wait a minute. That is not the spirit. Any more remarks in that vein, and you don’t get anything.
And what about this guy? Is he out of it, or what?
Oefinger, like others, expressed concern that the stimulus will not provide long-term benefits or jobs.
”I think it’s going to be dumping a lot of money down the rat hole and not have a lot to show for it,” he said.
Rat hole, eh?
Yes, rat hole.
Blithe Spirit 
A rat hole is as good as any explanation as to where much of the stimulus money will eventually land. It could also be called a giant Ponzi scheme. Already our own Mayor Daley is dreaming of an open federal spigot of stimulus money to pay for new construction, land acquisitions and more government workers. All this in a city and state recognized nationally as rife with corruption and graft! As is happening in Connecticut, city mayors and Democratic interest groups are all lining up like pigs at a trough for a piece of pork out of what is destined to be a massive government slush fund. It is also money that this nation doesn’t have to spend. The stimulus package will insure that there will be many roads to “no-where” built, along with rampant waste, fraud, and inferior services. The American taxpayers will be the losers in the end.
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