White House Under Fire for Unspent Infrastructure Cash

The Obama administration has paid out less than a third of the nearly $230 billion allocated to big infrastructure projects in the economic-stimulus program.

The administration has said that stimulus spending was always intended to roll out in stages, over two years, and that the pace of outlays for infrastructure would be slower than for parts of the package that provided tax cuts and subsidies for programs such as Medicaid. White House economist Jared Bernstein, in an Aug. 11 blog post, said that when Republicans call for a halt to stimulus spending, "they're essentially talking about taking away middle-class tax cuts, leaving unemployed workers unexpectedly high and dry without an unemployment check, halting road and bridge projects and leaving them unfinished, leaving contractors unpaid for the work they've already done and more." Recent opinion polls suggest the White House has struggled to communicate its message, particularly after its emphasis on "shovel-ready" projects during the debate over the plan's passage in early 2009.