Congressional analysts have estimated that Connecticut stands to get an extra $1.8 billion in federal grants from the proposed economic stimulus package.
An analysis by the House Appropriations Committee says the money for the state would include $1.16 billion for infrastructure improvements including highway, bridge and sewer construction, and $403 million for school renovations, Pell grants and other education programs.
Connecticut would also get $243 million more for Medicaid programs.
Connecticut officials are hoping to get more federal funding because of the state’s budget deficit, estimated at more than $900 million for this fiscal year and more than $6 billion over the next two.
The immediate goal of President Barack Obama’s $825 billion stimulus plan is to spend money fast. Some of his favorite proposals, however, will take years to have full impact.
Obama wants to spend $550 billion and cut taxes by $275 billion to jump-start the economy. The White House claims 75 percent of it will go out this fiscal year or next, but a new report from the Congressional Budget Office puts the figure at 64 percent.
More than half the money allocated for state grants, school renovations and beefed-up law enforcement would be spent after 2010, the CBO said. Two-thirds of the $30 billion in highway construction would be spent in later years, along with more than 80 percent of the nearly $30 billion to spur renewable energy, fix federal buildings and expand broadband Internet service.
Building military hospitals, barracks and day care centers will take seven years, the agency said. Water projects will continue throughout the next decade.
“You have a hard economic argument to make that paving a road, or fixing a bridge, or building a wind turbine or laying a power grid doesn’t create jobs,” said White House press secretary Robert Gibbs
The administration defends the longer-term proposals as necessary. “We also must look to the future and begin the process of reinvesting in priorities like clean energy, education, health care and infrastructure, so that the United States can enhance its long-term growth and thrive in the 21st century,” White House budget director Peter Orszag said in a letter to House leaders.
Major portions of the stimulus package will infiltrate the economy quickly: additional unemployment benefits, health insurance, food stamps and student loans for low-income Americans, along with most of the tax cuts for individuals and businesses.
USA Today and Associated Press reports were included in this article.
