Public policy is supposed to be about fixing problems, a deliberate plan of action by the government to address an issue. To fix a problem, you must change people's behavior.
“The stimulus spent a lot of money, ran up the deficit and debt and, worst of all, generally did not change people's behaviors,” said Keystone College political-science professor Jeff Brauer. “That's bad public policy.”
If the stimulus was deemed so necessary, then the money should have gone entirely to much-needed infrastructure improvements. At least then, we’d have something to show for it.
“More importantly, it would change people's behaviors,” Brauer said, explaining that businesses – particularly small businesses – would create new jobs that would lead to more permanent employment.
Leadville’s Elliott would have loved to see stimulus money used for infrastructure projects across the country, not just in his town: “You could say I am somewhat disappointed in this administration so far.”
Three-hundred miles down the road, the mayor of Lamar, Colo., says his town created its own stimulus to boost spending within the city limits. The town of 10,000 also did not receive any federal stimulus dollars.
“Very little of what Washington does helps us out here,” said Mayor Roger Stagner. “While there is always an expectation that you might get help, our economy depends on ourselves.”
Keystone College’s Brauer says fly-over voters, especially those who supported Obama, feel a major disconnect with the administration. “They wanted Washington to tighten its belt and balance its books, just as they have had to do with their own families in these tough economic times.”
What they got was more out-of-control deficit spending, with no regard for the implications.
“And worse than that,” he adds, “they are not seeing the benefits of this deficit spending. It’s not giving them better lives, it’s not fixing the problems.”
Traveling from one end of Colorado to the other along highways large, small and barely navigable, shiny new “Project funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act” signs dot the roads – with no visible evidence of recent, current or coming construction.
Yet in the shadow of Pikes Peak, on the outskirts of Cimarron Hills, another oversized homemade sign expressing displeasure with the White House blows in the wind.