Like WPA Before, Recovery Act to Leave Lasting Public Good

From the start, people have likened the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, also known as "the stimulus", to the New Deal's famous public works program, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) started in 1935.¹ ² ³ Over its eight years, the WPA hired eight million people to work on 1.4 million projects, many of which built roads, bridges, sewers, airports, parks, reservoirs and electric transmission -- infrastructure that has lasted decades, some to this day. While the Recovery Act did not hire workers directly, its funding, loans and loan guarantees saved or created jobs for three million people.⁴ Many of those people worked and are still working on the 45,000 projects that the Recovery Act classifies as infrastructure, transportation or energy/environment.⁵ One of the bigger of those projects, the Ivanpah Mojave Desert solar plant, will stand among the world's largest, putting out 400 megawatts of electricity. Another big power project, the Caithness Shepherds Flat Wind Farm in Oregon, will stand as the world's largest wind farm, putting out 845 megawatts. Some of the bigger transportation building projects are the Moynihan Station Amtrak train hall in New York City, the Innerbelt Bridge in Cleveland and the Caldecott Tunnel in Oakland. And one of the biggest of the Recovery Act's electric vehicle battery projects, the new Johnson Controls advanced battery plant in Holland, Michigan, makes complete lithium-ion battery systems for hybrid and electric vehicles.
Since its start in February 2009, the Recovery Act has completed about 21,000 of the 45,000 infrastructure-type projects, while the rest will continue to course through the domestic economy for another few years. While the Recovery Acts's running time won't last as long, the public good from the infrastructure it builds may well last as long as that of the WPA.
Cleveland Shoreway in 1939 – built by the WPA (Ohio Federal Writers' Project)