For starters how about quit throwing money away on Amtrak. They bail that entity out constantly since it was started. As to all these other infrastructure spenditures and what it means to most surveyors, to put it in a word - nothing. Unless you are employed at a big engineering firm who already has their hooks in civil/municiple projects it won't mean a thing to the regular surveyor. The only thing will make a difference is when the housing market starts moving again and new private construction gets going again. What all this spending is going to do to everyone is raise taxes, reduce the value of the dollar and nothing more. They, the government, tried this major social endeavor once before and it failed miserably. It's called the National Recovery Act of 1933 as one of the parts of FDR's New Deal programs. To give an idea a what a trillion dollars is, you can spend over 1.3 million a day since Jesus Christ was born to get to a trillion! Since you got me started on this sore subject, I'd like to how $40M for a frisbee golf course or a $1B to save swamp mice has to do with saving jobs. Most of the stuff in this current bill are things that should be going through regular appropriations bill and not some so-called bailout/stimulus emergency bill. Those are just a few of my thoughts. I could go on for hours about this debacle of spending plans.

The sad part is that they have given big banks several billion and we have yet to see the trickle down effect. Does the government honestly think that this will ease up credit. Big banks have lost billions on bad lending practices and they are using the bailout money to compensate those bad practices. Until such time as our government pulls their heads out and demands that this new stimulus package be spent on other things such as the building of roads, bridges (Infrastructure) type amenities, we as land surveyors etc will struggle to keep going.

I am a survey manager for a state DOT. The stimulus package will not privide much survey work in this state. One of the requirements of the package as I understand it is that to qualify for stimulus funding the project must be let by such an early date that it will not allow time for development of plans that require pre design surveys and minimal construction stakeout.

Christine Here locally in Lawton we are experiency a pretty drastic growth due to the BRAC and the inflow of more brigades into Lawton. This is severely straining our existing infrastructure even with our newly completed second WFTP. We have several jobs that have been designed and basically awaiting funding so that we can bid these and begin construction. Hopefully the stimulus will open up some funding from ODOT and the federal government for some of these projects. I'm guessing that we have around 40 million of projects already designed so this would not help the typical boundary survey but it would help those that do construction layout work. There are just not enough GPS equipped motive tractors/graders or such to keep up with this demand. I think if you do construction staking then the stimilus will help in our area and all over the state. Our Mayor has attended several workshops for Mayors across Oklahoma to discuss the stimilus bill and how it may impact our city. Our council approved two different emergency measures this past month so that we can pursue any sorts of grants that this bill may provide. I'm sure that most other towns are also trying to be proactive in these regards. Across the rest of Oklahoma, the stimilus should kick off many projects that have not been surveyed or designed. Many municipal contracts are pretty much given to the same players over and over so they will likely get the brunt of these. That is not completely a bad thing because many of the larger firms have begun to seek jobs which they would never have condidered in more robust times. I think they have eroded some of the business that solo surveyors like Bob Manley used to count on so getting these large firms back to large jobs will help the smaller companies as well. Will all this work? I have no idea but I am hopeful at this point.We have seen way to many posts on the POB lately about men losing their jobs. One danger is that this stimilus will just create an artificial well being until the money runs out. If the economy has rebounded then the plan will have worked. If the economy does not restart to continue the growth then the stimilus will have been like putting in a new battery to a car without a coil wire. It will crank until the battery dies. And on a side note, but related. I enjoy trips out in our Wichita Wildlife refugee and often solitary hikes in the mountains. Nearly all the dams and bridge on the refugee have WPA plates on them. These were all built during a difficult phase in our economy and are still being used and enjoyed to this day. I hate to seem them replace one of these bridges since I just know that the old one, while narrow, would have still been there another 100 years from now.

Being primarily a cadastral surveyor, I doubt that the stimulus bill will have a noticeable effect on my practice. I believe that it will be beneficial to civil design firms and to the surveyors that they employ. I am opposed to the bill, and would be even if I saw a potential benefit to my practice. I believe that the bubble would never have become large enough to burst, if the government had not manipulated the economy over the past thirty years. It seems that no politician wants to have a recession on his or her watch. Each time the indicators of recession appear, interest rates, lending standards and regulations are tweaked, thus preventing the natural adjustments needed to prevent overvaluation of assets. I say forget the stimulus, and let nature take its course. I believe that the pain will be severe, but of much shorter duration than the hardship caused by the massive debt associated with this bill. I wrote to my congressman and both senators last fall, asking them to vote against the TARP bill. Of course they voted for it. The stimulus bill likewise appears to be unstoppable. I hope it works out despite my skepticism.

I don't look at it as to how it will benefit my business. The irresponsible and dangerous way this was done is something that will bring our capitalistic system down. Wait until the insidious plague of inflation kicks in. Tell me I'm wrong in a few years and I'll apologize for writing this.