Recovery.gov

The Obma Administration has established the Web Site Recovery.gov as the clearinghouse for information on the money being spent in the Stimulus Bill titled - The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Under Frequently Asked Questions there appears this question and response:

Q: What type of programs will this recovery package fund?A: The Recovery Act specifies appropriations for a wide range of Federal programs and will increase or extend certain benefits payable under the Medicaid, unemployment compensation, and nutrition assistance programs. The legislation also reduces individual and corporate income tax collections and makes a variety of other changes to tax laws. The package provides funds that will:

Create a framework for clean, efficient, American energy;
Transform our economy with science and technology;
Modernize roads, bridges, transit and waterways;
Overhaul education for the 21st Century;
Dispense tax cuts to make work pay and create jobs;
Expand access to health care and lower costs;
Provide assistance to workers hurt by the economy;

If the above stated goals are to be met than the money allocated towards it are a mere pittance of what is really needed. Just taking the first stated goal:

Create a framework for clean, efficient, American energy; as an example. To really achieve this goal much more than is being allocated is needed. To transform America's Fossil Fuel Economy into a clean, efficient, energy economy would require a massive Government investment into transforming every Local, County, State, and Federal Government owned building into an Energy Self Sufficient building. This would require much more than the Stimulus Bill has to offer and would be a major impetus in solving the economic woes. Let's assume that one hundred buildings a year in each State could be converted in each of the next ten years, and that each building would require an average of $2 Million to convert, that means that the Stimulus Bill is woefully underfunded. Although an extraordinary amount of money would be required to fund such an ambitious undertaking, it would not be money wasted such as the money that was poured into the Iraq invasion, and although it is money that will create a deficit, it is money that will also create a long term savings to the future budgets. As each building becomes energy self sufficient it would no longer pay monthly utility bills, hence, government budgets would be reduced by the amounts of these savings for the useful life of the systems that are constructed. This kind of expenditure would create jobs in every aspect of the economy, from laborers, to engineers, from factory workers to bankers, from inventors to architects. A plan of massive proportions that is capable of putting a dent in America's fossil fuel usage which would save in the future.