They do me wrong who say I come no more. When once I knock and fail to find you in; For every day I stand outside your door, And bid you wake, and rise to fight and win. Wail not for precious chances passed away; Weep not for golden ages on the wane; Each night I burn the records of the day; At sunrise every soul is born again. Laugh like a boy at splendors that have sped, To vanished joys be blind and deaf and dumb; My judgments seal the dead past with its dead, But never bind a moment yet to come. Though deep in mire wring not your hands and weep, I lend my arm to all who say, I can! No shamefaced outcast ever sank so deep But yet might rise and be again a man! Dost thou behold thy lost youth all aghast? Dost reel from righteous retribution's blow? Then turn from blotted archives of the past And find the future's pages white as snow. Art thou a mourner? Rouse thee from thy spell; 40 Art thou a sinner? Sin may be forgiven; Each morning gives thee wings to flee from hell, Each night a star to guide thy feet to heaven. STRIVE not to banish pain and doubt, In pleasures noisy din; The peace thou seekest from without, Is only found within. (Walter Malone)1 of 22
THE LAW OF SUCCESS IN SIXTEEN LESSONS by Napoleon Hill Teaching, for the First Time in the History of the World, the True Philosophy upon which all Personal Success is Built. PUBLISHED BY The RALSTON UNIVERSITY PRESS MERIDEN, CONN. COPYRIGHT 1928, BY NAPOLEON HILL
Thursday, November 18, 2010
A History Lesson
Who ne'er has suffered, he has lived but half, Who never failed, he never strove or sought, Who never wept is stranger to a laugh, And he who never doubted never thought. As I near the end of this, my favorite lesson of this course, I close my eyes for a moment and see before me a great army of men and women whose faces show the lines of care and despair. Some are in rags, having reached the last stage of that long, long trail which men call failure! Others are in better circumstances, but the fear of starvation shows plainly on their faces; the smile of courage has left their lips; and they, too, seem to have given up the battle. The scene shifts! I look again and I am carried backward into the history of mans struggle for a place in the sun, and there I see, also, the failures of the past - failures that have meant more to the human race than all the so-called successes recorded in the history of the world. I see the homely face of Socrates as he stood at the very end of that trail called failure, waiting, with upturned eyes, through those moments which must have seemed like an eternity, just before he drank the cup of hemlock that was forced upon him by his tormentors. I see, also, Christopher Columbus, a prisoner in chains, which was the tribute paid him for his sacrifice in having set sail on an unknown and uncharted sea, to discover an unknown continent. I see, also, the face of Thomas Paine, the man whom the English sought to capture and put to death as the real instigator of the American Revolution. I see him lying in a filthy prison, in France, as he waited calmly, under the shadow of the guillotine, for the death, which he expected, would be meted out to him for his part in behalf of humanity. And I see, also, the face of the Man of Galilee, as he suffered on the cross of Calvary - the reward he received for his efforts in behalf of suffering human Failures, all! Oh, to be such a failure. Oh, to go down in history, as these men did, as one who was brave enough to place humanity above the individual and principle above pecuniary gain. On such failures rest the hopes of the world. Oh, men, who are labeled failures - up, rise up! again and do! Somewhere in the world of action is room; there is room for you. No failure was eer recorded, in the annals of truthful men, Except of the craven-hearted who fails, nor attempts again. The glory is in the doing, and not in the trophy won; The walls that are laid in darkness may laugh to the kiss of the sun. Oh, weary and worn and stricken, oh, child of fates cruel gales! I sing - that it haply may cheer him - I sing to the man who fails. Be thankful for the defeat which men call failure, because if you can survive it and keep on trying it gives you a chance to prove your ability to rise to the heights of achievement in your chosen field of endeavor. No one has the right to brand you as a failure except yourself. If, in a moment of despair, you should feel inclined to brand yourself as a failure, just remember those words of the wealthy philosopher, Croesus, who was advisor to Cyrus, king of the Persians: I am reminded, O king, and take this lesson to heart, that there is a wheel on which the affairs of men revolve and its mechanism is such that it prevents any man from being always fortunate. What a wonderful lesson is wrapped up in those words - a lesson of hope and courage and promise. (Napolean Hill 1920 The Law of Failure)
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Self Confidence Formula
First: I know that I have the ability to achieve the object of my definite purpose. Therefore I demand of myself persistent aggressive and continuous action toward attainment.
Second: I realize that the dominating thoughts of my mind eventually reproduce themselves outward bodily action and gradually transform themselves into physical reality. Therefore I will concentrate my mind for thirty minutes daily upon the task of thinking of the person I intend to be creating a mental picture of this person and then transforming that picture of this person into reality for practical service.
Third: I know that through principle of auto suggestion and desire that I persistently hold on my mind will eventually seek expression through some practical means of realizing it. Therefore I shall devote ten minutes daily to demanding myself of the development of the factors named in the sixteen lessons of this Reading Course in the Law of Success.
Fourth: I have clearly mapped out and written down a description of my definite purpose in life for the coming five years. I have set a price on my services for each of these five years. A price that I intend to earn and receive through strict application of the principles, of efficient, satisfactory service which will render in advance.
Fifth: I fully realize that no wealth can endure unless built on truth and justice therefore I will engage in no transaction, which does not benefit all whom it affects. I will succeed by attracting to me the forces I wish to use and the cooperation of the people. I will induce others to service me because I will first service them. I will eliminate hatred, jealousy, selfishness, and cynicism by developing love for all humanity, because I know that a negative attitude towards others can never bring me success. I will cause others to believe in me because I will believe in them and myself. I will cause others to believe in me because I will believe in them, and myself. I will sign my name to this formula commit it to memory and repeat it aloud once a day with full faith that it will gradually influence my entire life so that I will become a successful and happy worker in my chosen field of endeavor.(1 of 22
THE LAW OF SUCCESS IN SIXTEEN LESSONS by Napoleon Hill Teaching, for the First Time in the History of the World, the True Philosophy upon which all Personal Success is Built. PUBLISHED BY The RALSTON UNIVERSITY PRESS MERIDEN, CONN. COPYRIGHT 1928, BY NAPOLEON HILL )
Napolean Hill
First: I know that I have the ability to achieve the object of my definite purpose. Therefore I demand of myself persistent aggressive and continuous action toward attainment.
Second: I realize that the dominating thoughts of my mind eventually reproduce themselves outward bodily action and gradually transform themselves into physical reality. Therefore I will concentrate my mind for thirty minutes daily upon the task of thinking of the person I intend to be creating a mental picture of this person and then transforming that picture of this person into reality for practical service.
Third: I know that through principle of auto suggestion and desire that I persistently hold on my mind will eventually seek expression through some practical means of realizing it. Therefore I shall devote ten minutes daily to demanding myself of the development of the factors named in the sixteen lessons of this Reading Course in the Law of Success.
Fourth: I have clearly mapped out and written down a description of my definite purpose in life for the coming five years. I have set a price on my services for each of these five years. A price that I intend to earn and receive through strict application of the principles, of efficient, satisfactory service which will render in advance.
Fifth: I fully realize that no wealth can endure unless built on truth and justice therefore I will engage in no transaction, which does not benefit all whom it affects. I will succeed by attracting to me the forces I wish to use and the cooperation of the people. I will induce others to service me because I will first service them. I will eliminate hatred, jealousy, selfishness, and cynicism by developing love for all humanity, because I know that a negative attitude towards others can never bring me success. I will cause others to believe in me because I will believe in them and myself. I will cause others to believe in me because I will believe in them, and myself. I will sign my name to this formula commit it to memory and repeat it aloud once a day with full faith that it will gradually influence my entire life so that I will become a successful and happy worker in my chosen field of endeavor.(1 of 22
THE LAW OF SUCCESS IN SIXTEEN LESSONS by Napoleon Hill Teaching, for the First Time in the History of the World, the True Philosophy upon which all Personal Success is Built. PUBLISHED BY The RALSTON UNIVERSITY PRESS MERIDEN, CONN. COPYRIGHT 1928, BY NAPOLEON HILL )
Napolean Hill
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Sex, Drugs, and Rock Roll
What happened to the time when politicians and the leaders of our great country had law degrees. These days we wonder if America is seeing it's last glimpse of the sunlight as the world leader. The wisdom that comes from education, experience and common sense starting with the founding fathers of this great nation. Today, we do not have deep thinkers, people who sit, contemplate and act on those great thought popular or no. As Gen. George Washington sat on the shores of the Potomac River facing a lack of funding from congress for the revolutionary war his been without shoes or food becoming meager and popular thought saying surrender all in the Snow of the northern states of winter. But Gen Washington having thou hgt it through and knew the outcome would be victorious. Thus creating a new country of freedom of its people from Britain, sailed across the Potomac River with his men with courage and commitment.
Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Abraham Lincoln, are learned men of deep contemplative thoughts of the future of these United States and it's constituents. The framework of the United States seems to be something that as time goes by needs someone (out politicians to pay attention to) is not a living document, it is static, it is not dynamic. hard choices hae to be made, truth has to be victorious, and courage has to be possessed by the leaders of this great country. Over the past one hundred years there has been only several courageous leaders who stood with conviction of their thoughts of staying on the side of righteousness, thoughtfulness, love, morality, and integrity. John F. Kennedy, Martin L. King, Lyndon B. Johnson, Malcom Shabazz, Jimmy Carter, and Barack Obama are examples of great leaders and thinkers.
The Tea Party has good intentions, but it seems there is not a a well read person or anyone of great thinking abilities among the top brass which does not lend to good leadership.
In 1974 there was a oil shortage in the United States. Gas was not available in the needed quantities or so we were told. The prices escalated. To have order legislation was [passed in California, the number "3" state in public education and a booming economy, mad provision for cars with the licence number ending in an even number to purchase gas only on even days Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday. And cars with licences ending in odd numbers purchasing gas on odd days Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays. However, because of the nature of America we did not seek to pursue aggressively an alternative fuel or means of transportation that was not make us a slave to another country. A group of Arab OPEC countries which now provides terrorist with the religious and financial backing to attack America and the world to like communism make the whole world Islamic. Hopefully like Communism it will not succeed in doing. But what is America's nature? Is our culture the same as out nature?
After long conversations with some people, I have come to the conclusion that America's nature is held in it's people. In out society we want more now. More materialistic things, the bigger the better, from houses to our fast food sandwiches. Which brings me to the second point we want it fast and easy. Everything microwavable. So it doesn't surprise the world that eh population in America is the most obese country in the world. In America we coined the phrase couch potato and the 12 ounce curl as an exercise. Lifting a beer to to your mouth is not an exercises. Americans are LAZY. Which leads me to the question "Are our freshman politicians stupid caused by their laziness a reflection of the country? A population that is told what to think by pundits. Are we so lazy that we won't think a thing through to completion. Or do we know how? Are there no more thinkers? Not to mention great thinkers. Let us return to reading, thinking and exercising your brain. Turn off ther idiot box. Here is a word for you today atrophy. "Without reading atrophy of the brain begins."
Thursday, October 21, 2010
I Create My Universe With My Thoughts
"My Happy Place"
I can smell the salty air, hear the sea gulls, and feel the sand between my toes. The waves are crashing and the mist them feels nice. I can her Julie screaming for ther dog Singer to wake up. I want to run to her and warn her but I can't. I am sitting in my bed reading a book, "The Guardian". I have created my own universe with my thoughts while reading my book, it feels like I'm there.
One of my favorite escapes is reading a book especially when I am down and need a break from the real world. A mypopic amount of real people don't like to read but they don't know how great it is when you can escape by reading. It is also possible by imaginig any place you want to be and anyone you want to be.
Life is stressful and crazy sometimes. Everyone needs a way to relax and get away from there stressors. Imagining and reading are the perfect ways of creating another universe where your real problems don't exist. Mary Beth McIntyre Class of 2011
I can smell the salty air, hear the sea gulls, and feel the sand between my toes. The waves are crashing and the mist them feels nice. I can her Julie screaming for ther dog Singer to wake up. I want to run to her and warn her but I can't. I am sitting in my bed reading a book, "The Guardian". I have created my own universe with my thoughts while reading my book, it feels like I'm there.
One of my favorite escapes is reading a book especially when I am down and need a break from the real world. A mypopic amount of real people don't like to read but they don't know how great it is when you can escape by reading. It is also possible by imaginig any place you want to be and anyone you want to be.
Life is stressful and crazy sometimes. Everyone needs a way to relax and get away from there stressors. Imagining and reading are the perfect ways of creating another universe where your real problems don't exist. Mary Beth McIntyre Class of 2011
Thursday, October 7, 2010
Before It Can Become A Reality It Must First Be a Thought
The quote "Before it can become a real it must first begin as a thought." There are several reasons I chose this quote to write an essay on; first is because once you read this quote then you start questioning yourself and what it means. I feel that if people didn't think then we wouldn't have food, government, homes, clothes or maybe we wouldn't be here. If no one would have thought about houses, then everyone would be living on the streets. The clothes and shoes that you have on were thought of by someone. If we didn't have thoughts we wouldn't have a world. Thinking about things is the only way it is going to become a reality. Many people may think the things that they have today fell out of the sky, but they are wrong. It went through someone's mind as a thought and out as a realtiy. Once you have read this quote tell me what it made you think about. did you know that the new 2011 Air Jordan's are designed by a woman. Class of 2013 Deneasha Armour
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
What Does It Mean To Want Something?
A serious question only you can answer. To want is something that most people think should be given to them. They think of it as dreams that magically become reality. I think to want something is to work your hardest at getting it.
I always thought things were supposed to be handed to me. It's a little obvious that I was wrong. I couldn't figure out why I was never successfull at anything, I never studied, practiced nor did I ever give 100% effort. I was basically known as wasted talent. I now believe maturity is a big factor in life when it comes to wanting something. As I hae matured I now realize that a starting spot will not be handed to me because of my last name or a 100% on a test will not be given due to the fact that I have potential. The main things I have to do to recieve the things I want is to work hard, think bigger than my dreams, and strive everday until I earn it. So to answer my question, "What do mean to want something?". It means the choice is left up to you and what you are gooing to do to recieve it. Austin McCant Class of 2013
I always thought things were supposed to be handed to me. It's a little obvious that I was wrong. I couldn't figure out why I was never successfull at anything, I never studied, practiced nor did I ever give 100% effort. I was basically known as wasted talent. I now believe maturity is a big factor in life when it comes to wanting something. As I hae matured I now realize that a starting spot will not be handed to me because of my last name or a 100% on a test will not be given due to the fact that I have potential. The main things I have to do to recieve the things I want is to work hard, think bigger than my dreams, and strive everday until I earn it. So to answer my question, "What do mean to want something?". It means the choice is left up to you and what you are gooing to do to recieve it. Austin McCant Class of 2013
Friday, September 24, 2010
A Great Leader
What does it take to become a Great Leader? Some people might think they are a great leader because they have followers. That's not true in most cases. A Great Leader will do the right thing, be a teammate, and have great preparation. The little things can make you a great leader.
In order to become a Great Leader you'll have to do things the right way. Whether in sports or in life there will always be two groups of people, those who do the right things, and those who don't. You'll need to be able to find out who is in what group. And when you do you find out, place yourself in the right crowd. If there is not a good group then you'll need to separate yourself. One of the greatest leaders King David, was separated from every one. You have to know what right and stick to it. Even if some people try to pressure you to do wrong, just have the courage to do the right thing.
Also Great Leaders help others out. In order to be a Great Leader you have to be humble. You can't go around showing off or bragging because people will not want to follow that. You have to learn that you are not better than the guy next to you, whether you are a senior or a boss. You will also have to be willing to help out your peers. it could be a play, a math problem, or issues at the house, a Great Leader will take his personal time to help someone in need out.
Finally a Great Leader will do what it takes to be prepared. Everything from a huge football game to a important speech needs great preparation for great results. In order to have great preparation you will need to block out anything that has nothing to do with whatever you are preparing for. You have to stay focused when you are preparing don't let outside things get in your way. Another thing that will help is go the extra mile,run an extra lap, hit twenty extra balls, or get more in depth with your research. you can never have to much preparation.
If you follow these things and stick with them you'll be the best leader you could be. You just have to keep your head on straight and do the right things. Also help out the man or woman next to you. and finally prepare like your life depends on it. Follow this and people will watch and follow you. This essay written by Marquis Smith of Class of 2013
In order to become a Great Leader you'll have to do things the right way. Whether in sports or in life there will always be two groups of people, those who do the right things, and those who don't. You'll need to be able to find out who is in what group. And when you do you find out, place yourself in the right crowd. If there is not a good group then you'll need to separate yourself. One of the greatest leaders King David, was separated from every one. You have to know what right and stick to it. Even if some people try to pressure you to do wrong, just have the courage to do the right thing.
Also Great Leaders help others out. In order to be a Great Leader you have to be humble. You can't go around showing off or bragging because people will not want to follow that. You have to learn that you are not better than the guy next to you, whether you are a senior or a boss. You will also have to be willing to help out your peers. it could be a play, a math problem, or issues at the house, a Great Leader will take his personal time to help someone in need out.
Finally a Great Leader will do what it takes to be prepared. Everything from a huge football game to a important speech needs great preparation for great results. In order to have great preparation you will need to block out anything that has nothing to do with whatever you are preparing for. You have to stay focused when you are preparing don't let outside things get in your way. Another thing that will help is go the extra mile,run an extra lap, hit twenty extra balls, or get more in depth with your research. you can never have to much preparation.
If you follow these things and stick with them you'll be the best leader you could be. You just have to keep your head on straight and do the right things. Also help out the man or woman next to you. and finally prepare like your life depends on it. Follow this and people will watch and follow you. This essay written by Marquis Smith of Class of 2013
Friday, September 10, 2010
The Average Republican ...Did Obama Cause This
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/video/politician-phil-davison-freaks-out-during-speech-11600742
After looking at the numbers for the month there is a net loss of jobs of 67,000. We talk about this administration and the discouragement of growth of business. Now the people are being given the popular opinion that the President is doing a terrible job as President. But they forgot that when he came in to office there was a net job loss every month of 750,000. Three quarters of a million jobs a month lost, down the drain. So would you rather loose $750.00 a month or $67.00. It is the same thing, the money is just something that is small enough to make is sinmple enough to understand. Republicans want the office of President so bad and hate so bad that Black American man is the most powerful man in the world and ouit snookered them. Don't forget the American Black is the most hated person in America. So the have the third richest man in Amercia who is also own the company with that is give off the third largest amount of pollution sin the United States. With all opf his money I believe 35 billion dollars to try and dethrone President Obama. So if that man is trying to get President Obama de-elected next 2012 election, Obama must really be good for the country. The same thing was done to President Clinton. We must stand up and not be dismayed my the rhetoric that is spewed over and over again. A lie if told long enough can it become the truth? Let us spread the truth and change public opinion to the real truth "that the economy is getting better". America has been partying since the end of world war 2. The beginning of the baby boom was the start of the party over 60 years. If you had been drinking for 60 years do how long do you think it will take you to gt clean and sober and into you right mind at least 60. so that is what we are up against. It is going to take a while to clean up. Obama is starting the process of cleaning up America. America should have started cleaning up after the first oil embargo in 1974. We should have at that point started having some sort of oil diet and started weening ourselves and the economy off oil. Instead what do we do give lip service and watch and copmplain that oil is going up so high even $148.00 a barrell which was $4.00 a gallon. Politicians let big business rape the small helpless man. The two political parties are not Democrat and Republican, but Corporatons vs Consumers, big business against small people. Lehaman brothers $140,000 toilet in the CEO's office, WTF and the average 3 bedroom 2bath home is $140,000. What did this toilet do? America was built on the backs of the poor, the immigrant, the most hated the black man of Amercia.
After looking at the numbers for the month there is a net loss of jobs of 67,000. We talk about this administration and the discouragement of growth of business. Now the people are being given the popular opinion that the President is doing a terrible job as President. But they forgot that when he came in to office there was a net job loss every month of 750,000. Three quarters of a million jobs a month lost, down the drain. So would you rather loose $750.00 a month or $67.00. It is the same thing, the money is just something that is small enough to make is sinmple enough to understand. Republicans want the office of President so bad and hate so bad that Black American man is the most powerful man in the world and ouit snookered them. Don't forget the American Black is the most hated person in America. So the have the third richest man in Amercia who is also own the company with that is give off the third largest amount of pollution sin the United States. With all opf his money I believe 35 billion dollars to try and dethrone President Obama. So if that man is trying to get President Obama de-elected next 2012 election, Obama must really be good for the country. The same thing was done to President Clinton. We must stand up and not be dismayed my the rhetoric that is spewed over and over again. A lie if told long enough can it become the truth? Let us spread the truth and change public opinion to the real truth "that the economy is getting better". America has been partying since the end of world war 2. The beginning of the baby boom was the start of the party over 60 years. If you had been drinking for 60 years do how long do you think it will take you to gt clean and sober and into you right mind at least 60. so that is what we are up against. It is going to take a while to clean up. Obama is starting the process of cleaning up America. America should have started cleaning up after the first oil embargo in 1974. We should have at that point started having some sort of oil diet and started weening ourselves and the economy off oil. Instead what do we do give lip service and watch and copmplain that oil is going up so high even $148.00 a barrell which was $4.00 a gallon. Politicians let big business rape the small helpless man. The two political parties are not Democrat and Republican, but Corporatons vs Consumers, big business against small people. Lehaman brothers $140,000 toilet in the CEO's office, WTF and the average 3 bedroom 2bath home is $140,000. What did this toilet do? America was built on the backs of the poor, the immigrant, the most hated the black man of Amercia.
Thursday, August 26, 2010
How the Stimulus Is Changing America
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 — President Obama's $787 billion stimulus — has been marketed as a jobs bill, and that's how it's been judged. The White House says it has saved or created about 3 million jobs, helping avoid a depression and end a recession. Republicans mock it as a Big Government boondoggle that has failed to prevent rampant unemployment despite a massive expansion of the deficit. Liberals complain that it wasn't massive enough.
It's an interesting debate. Politically, it's awkward to argue that things would have been even worse without the stimulus, even though that's what most nonpartisan economists believe. But the battle over the Recovery Act's short-term rescue has obscured its more enduring mission: a long-term push to change the country. It was about jobs, sure, but also about fighting oil addiction and global warming, transforming health care and education, and building a competitive 21st century economy. Some Republicans have called it an under-the-radar scramble to advance Obama's agenda — and they've got a point. (See TIME's special report "The Green Design 100.")
Yes, the stimulus has cut taxes for 95% of working Americans, bailed out every state, hustled record amounts of unemployment benefits and other aid to struggling families and funded more than 100,000 projects to upgrade roads, subways, schools, airports, military bases and much more. But in the words of Vice President Joe Biden, Obama's effusive Recovery Act point man, "Now the fun stuff starts!" The "fun stuff," about one-sixth of the total cost, is an all-out effort to exploit the crisis to make green energy, green building and green transportation real; launch green manufacturing industries; computerize a pen-and-paper health system; promote data-driven school reforms; and ramp up the research of the future. "This is a chance to do something big, man!" Biden said during a 90-minute interview with TIME.
For starters, the Recovery Act is the most ambitious energy legislation in history, converting the Energy Department into the world's largest venture-capital fund. It's pouring $90 billion into clean energy, including unprecedented investments in a smart grid; energy efficiency; electric cars; renewable power from the sun, wind and earth; cleaner coal; advanced biofuels; and factories to manufacture green stuff in the U.S. The act will also triple the number of smart electric meters in our homes, quadruple the number of hybrids in the federal auto fleet and finance far-out energy research through a new government incubator modeled after the Pentagon agency that fathered the Internet. (See TIME's special report "After One Year, A Stimulus Report Card.")
The only stimulus energy program that's gotten much attention so far — chiefly because it got off to a slow start — is a $5 billion effort to weatherize homes. But the Recovery Act's line items represent the first steps to a low-carbon economy. "It will leverage a very different energy future," says Kristin Mayes, the Republican chair of Arizona's utility commission. "It really moves us toward a tipping point." (Watch the video "TIME Polls America: Spend or Cut?")
The stimulus is also stocked with nonenergy game changers, like a tenfold increase in funding to expand access to broadband and an effort to sequence more than 2,300 complete human genomes — when only 34 were sequenced with all previous aid. There's $8 billion for a high-speed passenger rail network, the boldest federal transportation initiative since the interstate highways. There's $4.35 billion in Race to the Top grants to promote accountability in public schools, perhaps the most significant federal education initiative ever — it's already prompted 35 states and the District of Columbia to adopt reforms to qualify for the cash. There's $20 billion to move health records into the digital age, which should reduce redundant tests, dangerous drug interactions and errors caused by doctors with chicken-scratch handwriting. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius calls that initiative the foundation for Obama's health care reform and "maybe the single biggest component in improving quality and lowering costs." (Comment on this story.)
Any of those programs would have been a revolution in its own right. "We've seen more reform in the last year than we've seen in decades, and we haven't spent a dime yet," says Education Secretary Arne Duncan. "It's staggering how the Recovery Act is driving change." (See where employment will rebound in the U.S.)
That was the point. Critics have complained that while the New Deal left behind iconic monuments — courthouses, parks, the Lincoln Tunnel, the Grand Coulee Dam — this New New Deal will leave a mundane legacy of sewage plants, repaved roads, bus repairs and caulked windows. In fact, it will create new icons too: solar arrays, zero-energy border stations, an eco-friendly Coast Guard headquarters, an "advanced synchrotron light source" in a New York lab. But its main legacy will be change. The stimulus passed just a month after Obama's inauguration, but it may be his signature effort to reshape America — as well as its government. (See pictures of Barack Obama behind the scenes on Inauguration Day.)
"Let's Just Go Build It!"
After Obama's election, Depression scholar Christina Romer delivered a freak-out briefing to his transition team, warning that to avoid a 1930s-style collapse, Washington needed to pump at least $800 billion into the frozen economy — and fast. "We were in a tailspin," recalls Romer, who is about to step down as chair of Obama's Council of Economic Advisers. "I was completely sympathetic to the idea that we shouldn't just dig ditches and fill them in. But saving the economy had to be paramount." Obama's economists argued for tax cuts and income transfers to get cash circulating quickly, emergency aid to states to prevent layoffs of cops and teachers and off-the-shelf highway projects to put people to work. They wanted a textbook Keynesian response to an economy in cardiac arrest: adding money to existing programs via existing formulas or handing it to governors, seniors and first-time home buyers. They weren't keen to reinvent the wheel.
But Obama and Biden also saw a golden opportunity to address priorities; they emphasized shovel-worthy as well as shovel-ready. Biden recalls brainstorming with Obama about an all-in push for a smarter electrical grid that would reduce blackouts, promote renewables and give families more control over their energy diet: "We said, 'God, wouldn't it be wonderful? Why don't we invest $100 billion? Let's just go build it!' "
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It wasn't that easy. Utilities control the grid, and new wires create thorny not-in-my-backyard zoning issues; there wasn't $100 billion worth of remotely shovel-ready grid projects. It's hard to transform on a timeline, and some congressional Democrats were less interested in transforming government than growing it. For instance, after securing $100 billion for traditional education programs, House Appropriations Committee chairman Dave Obey tried to stop any of it from going to Race to the Top, which is unpopular with teachers' unions.
Ultimately, even Obama's speed focused economists agreed that stimulus spending shouldn't dry up in 2010. And some Democrats were serious about investing wisely, not just spending more. So House Speaker Nancy Pelosi insisted on $17 billion for research. House Education and Labor Committee chairman George Miller fought to save Race to the Top. And while the grid didn't get a $100 billion reinvention, it did get $11 billion after decades of neglect, which could shape trillions of dollars in future utility investments. (See 10 big recession surprises.)
It takes time to set up new programs, but now money is flowing to deliver high-speed Internet to rural areas, spread successful quit-smoking programs and design the first high-speed rail link from Tampa to Orlando. And deep in the Energy Department's basement — in a room dubbed the dungeon — a former McKinsey & Co. partner named Matt Rogers has created a government version of Silicon Valley's Sand Hill Road, blasting billions of dollars into clean-energy projects through a slew of oversubscribed grant programs. "The idea is to transform the entire energy sector," Rogers says. "What's exciting is the way it fits all together."
"They Won't All Succeed"
The green industrial revolution begins with gee-whiz companies like A123 Systems of Watertown, Mass. Founded in 2001 by MIT nanotechnology geeks who landed a $100,000 federal grant, A123 grew into a global player in the lithium-ion battery market, with 1,800 employees and five factories in China. It has won $249 million to build two plants in Michigan, where it will help supply the first generation of mass-market electric cars. At least four of A123's suppliers received stimulus money too. The Administration is also financing three of the world's first electric-car plants, including a $529 million loan to help Fisker Automotive reopen a shuttered General Motors factory in Delaware (Biden's home state) to build sedans powered by A123 batteries. Another A123 customer, Navistar, got cash to build electric trucks in Indiana. And since electric vehicles need juice, the stimulus will also boost the number of U.S. battery-charging stations by 3,200%.
"Without government, there's no way we would've done this in the U.S.," A123 chief technology officer Bart Riley told TIME. "But now you're going to see the industry reach critical mass here."
The Recovery Act's clean-energy push is designed not only to reduce our old economy dependence on fossil fuels that broil the planet, blacken the Gulf and strengthen foreign petro-thugs but also to avoid replacing it with a new economy that is just as dependent on foreign countries for technology and manufacturing. Last year, exactly two U.S. factories made advanced batteries for electric vehicles. The stimulus will create 30 new ones, expanding U.S. production capacity from 1% of the global market to 20%, supporting half a million plug-ins and hybrids. The idea is as old as land-grant colleges: to use tax dollars as an engine of innovation. It rejects free-market purism but also the old industrial-policy approach of dumping cash into a few favored firms. Instead, the Recovery Act floods the zone, targeting a variety of energy problems and providing seed money for firms with a variety of potential solutions. The winners must attract private capital to match public dollars — A123 held an IPO to raise the required cash — and after competing for grants, they still must compete in the marketplace. "They won't all succeed," Rogers says. "But some will, and they'll change the world." (Watch TIME's video "Google's Energy Initiatives Director Talks Clean Power.")
The investments extend all along the food chain. A brave new world of electric cars powered by coal plants could be dirtier than the oil-soaked status quo, so the stimulus includes an unheard-of $3.4 billion for clean-coal projects aiming to sequester or reuse carbon. There are also lucrative loan guarantees for constructing the first American nuclear plants in three decades. And after the credit crunch froze financing for green energy, stimulus cash has fueled a comeback, putting the U.S. on track to exceed Obama's goal of doubling renewable power by 2012. The wind industry added a record 10,000 megawatts in 2009. The stimulus is also supporting the nation's largest photovoltaic solar plant, in Florida, and what will be the world's two largest solar thermal plants, in Arizona and California, plus thousands of solar installations on homes and buildings.
The stimulus is helping scores of manufacturers of wind turbines and solar products expand as well, but today's grid can only handle so much wind and solar. A key problem is connecting remote wind farms to population centers, so there are billions of dollars for new transmission lines. Then there is the need to find storage capacity for when it isn't windy or sunny outside. The current grid is like a phone system without voice mail, a just-in-time network where power is wasted if it doesn't reach a user the moment it's generated. That's why the Recovery Act is funding dozens of smart-grid approaches. For instance, A123 is providing truckloads of batteries for a grid-storage project in California and recycled electric-car batteries for a similar effort in Detroit. "If we can show the utilities this stuff works," says Riley, "it will take off on its own."
Today, grid-scale storage, solar energy and many other green technologies are too costly to compete without subsidies. That's why the stimulus launched the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E), a blue-sky fund inspired by the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the incubator for GPS and the M-16 rifle as well as the Internet. Located in an office building a block from the rest of the Energy Department, ARPA-E will finance energy research too risky for private funders, focusing on speculative technologies that might dramatically cut the cost of, say, carbon capture — or not. "We're taking chances, because that's how you put a man on the moon," says director Arun Majumdar, a materials scientist from the University of California, Berkeley. "Our idea is it's O.K. to fail. You think America's pioneers never failed?"
ARPA-E is funding the new pioneers — mad scientists and engineers with ideas for wind turbines based on jet engines, bacteria to convert carbon dioxide into gasoline, and tiny molten-metal batteries to provide cheap high-voltage storage. That last idea is the brainchild of MIT's Donald Sadoway, who already has a prototype fuel cell the size of a shot glass. The stimulus will help him create a kind of reverse aluminum smelter to make prototypes the size of a hockey puck and a pizza box. The ultimate goal is a commercial scale battery the size of a tractor trailer that could power an entire neighborhood. "We need radical breakthroughs, so we need radical experiments," Sadoway says. "These projects send chills down the spine of the carbon world. If a few of them work, [Venezuela's Hugo] Chávez and [Iran's Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad are out of power."
Then again, the easiest way to blow up the energy world would be to stop wasting so much. That's the final link in the chain, a full-throttle push to make energy efficiency a national norm. The Recovery Act is weatherizing 250,000 homes this year. It gave homeowners rebates for energy-efficient appliances, much as the Cash for Clunkers program subsidized fuel-efficient cars. It's retrofitting juice-sucking server farms, factories and power plants; financing research into superefficient lighting, windows and machinery; and funneling billions into state and local efficiency efforts. (See TIME's special report "Obama's Agenda: Get America Back on Track.")
It will also retrofit 3 in 4 federal buildings. The U.S. government is the nation's largest energy consumer, so this will save big money while boosting demand for geothermal heat pumps, LED lighting and other energy-saving products. "We're so huge, we make markets," says Bob Peck, the General Services Administration's public-buildings commissioner. GSA's 93-year-old headquarters, now featuring clunky window air conditioners and wires duct-taped to ceilings, will get energy optimized heating, cooling and lighting systems, glass facades with solar membranes and a green roof; the makeover should cut its energy use 55%. It might even beta-test stimulus-funded windows that harvest sunlight. "We'll be the proving ground for innovation in the building industry," Peck says. "It all starts with renovating the government."
The New Venture Capitalists
The stimulus really is starting to change Washington — and not just the buildings. Every contract and lobbying contact is posted at Recovery.gov, with quarterly data detailing where the money went. A Recovery Board was created to scrutinize every dollar, with help from every major agency's independent watchdog. And Biden has promised state and local officials answers to all stimulus questions within 24 hours. It's a test-drive for a new approach to government: more transparent, more focused on results than compliance, not just bigger but better. Biden himself always saw the Recovery Act as a test — not only of the new Administration but of federal spending itself. He knew high-profile screwups could be fatal, stoking antigovernment anger about bureaucrats and two-car funerals. So he spends hours checking in, buttering up and banging heads to keep the stimulus on track, harassing Cabinet secretaries, governors and mayors about unspent broadband funds, weatherization delays and fishy projects. He has blocked some 260 skate parks, picnic tables and highway beautifications that flunked his what-would-your-mom-think test. "Imagine they could have proved we wasted a billion dollars," Biden says. "Gone, man. Gone!"
So far, despite furor over cash it supposedly funneled to contraception (deleted from the bill) and phantom congressional districts (simply typos), the earmark-free Recovery Act has produced surprisingly few scandals. Prosecutors are investigating a few fraud allegations, and critics have found some goofy expenditures, like $51,500 for water-safety-mascot costumes or a $50,000 arts grant to a kinky-film house. But those are minor warts, given that unprecedented scrutiny. Biden knows it's early — "I ain't saying mission accomplished!" — but he calls waste and fraud "the dogs that haven't barked." (See 25 people to blame for the financial crisis.)
The Recovery Act's deeper reform has been its focus on intense competition for grants instead of everybody-wins formulas, forcing public officials to consider not only whether applicants have submitted the required traffic studies and small-business hiring plans but also whether their projects make sense. Already staffed by top technologists from MIT, Duke and Intel, ARPA-E recruited 4,500 outside experts to winnow 3,700 applications down to 37 first-round grants. "We've taken the best and brightest from the tech world and created a venture fund — except we're looking for returns for the country," Majumdar says. These change agents didn't uproot their lives to fill out forms in triplicate and shovel money by formula. They want to reinvent the economy, not just stimulate it. Sadoway, the MIT battery scientist, is tired of reporting how many jobs he's created in his lab: "If this works, I'll create a million jobs!"
Obama has spent most of his first term trying to clean up messes — in the Gulf of Mexico, Iraq and Afghanistan, on Wall Street and Main Street — but the details in the stimulus plan are his real down payment on change. The question is which changes will last. Will electric cars disappear after the subsidies disappear? Will advanced battery factories migrate back to China? Will bullet trains ever get built? The President wants to extend transformative programs like ARPA-E. But would they be substitutes for the status quo or just additions to tack onto the deficit? And would they survive a Republican Congress?
Polls suggest the actual contents of the Recovery Act are popular. But the idea of the stimulus itself remains toxic — and probably will as long as the recovery remains tepid. "Today, it's judged by jobs," Rogers says of the act. "But in 10 years, it'll be judged by whether it transformed our economy."
(TimeMagazine.com August 26,2010)
It's an interesting debate. Politically, it's awkward to argue that things would have been even worse without the stimulus, even though that's what most nonpartisan economists believe. But the battle over the Recovery Act's short-term rescue has obscured its more enduring mission: a long-term push to change the country. It was about jobs, sure, but also about fighting oil addiction and global warming, transforming health care and education, and building a competitive 21st century economy. Some Republicans have called it an under-the-radar scramble to advance Obama's agenda — and they've got a point. (See TIME's special report "The Green Design 100.")
Yes, the stimulus has cut taxes for 95% of working Americans, bailed out every state, hustled record amounts of unemployment benefits and other aid to struggling families and funded more than 100,000 projects to upgrade roads, subways, schools, airports, military bases and much more. But in the words of Vice President Joe Biden, Obama's effusive Recovery Act point man, "Now the fun stuff starts!" The "fun stuff," about one-sixth of the total cost, is an all-out effort to exploit the crisis to make green energy, green building and green transportation real; launch green manufacturing industries; computerize a pen-and-paper health system; promote data-driven school reforms; and ramp up the research of the future. "This is a chance to do something big, man!" Biden said during a 90-minute interview with TIME.
For starters, the Recovery Act is the most ambitious energy legislation in history, converting the Energy Department into the world's largest venture-capital fund. It's pouring $90 billion into clean energy, including unprecedented investments in a smart grid; energy efficiency; electric cars; renewable power from the sun, wind and earth; cleaner coal; advanced biofuels; and factories to manufacture green stuff in the U.S. The act will also triple the number of smart electric meters in our homes, quadruple the number of hybrids in the federal auto fleet and finance far-out energy research through a new government incubator modeled after the Pentagon agency that fathered the Internet. (See TIME's special report "After One Year, A Stimulus Report Card.")
The only stimulus energy program that's gotten much attention so far — chiefly because it got off to a slow start — is a $5 billion effort to weatherize homes. But the Recovery Act's line items represent the first steps to a low-carbon economy. "It will leverage a very different energy future," says Kristin Mayes, the Republican chair of Arizona's utility commission. "It really moves us toward a tipping point." (Watch the video "TIME Polls America: Spend or Cut?")
The stimulus is also stocked with nonenergy game changers, like a tenfold increase in funding to expand access to broadband and an effort to sequence more than 2,300 complete human genomes — when only 34 were sequenced with all previous aid. There's $8 billion for a high-speed passenger rail network, the boldest federal transportation initiative since the interstate highways. There's $4.35 billion in Race to the Top grants to promote accountability in public schools, perhaps the most significant federal education initiative ever — it's already prompted 35 states and the District of Columbia to adopt reforms to qualify for the cash. There's $20 billion to move health records into the digital age, which should reduce redundant tests, dangerous drug interactions and errors caused by doctors with chicken-scratch handwriting. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius calls that initiative the foundation for Obama's health care reform and "maybe the single biggest component in improving quality and lowering costs." (Comment on this story.)
Any of those programs would have been a revolution in its own right. "We've seen more reform in the last year than we've seen in decades, and we haven't spent a dime yet," says Education Secretary Arne Duncan. "It's staggering how the Recovery Act is driving change." (See where employment will rebound in the U.S.)
That was the point. Critics have complained that while the New Deal left behind iconic monuments — courthouses, parks, the Lincoln Tunnel, the Grand Coulee Dam — this New New Deal will leave a mundane legacy of sewage plants, repaved roads, bus repairs and caulked windows. In fact, it will create new icons too: solar arrays, zero-energy border stations, an eco-friendly Coast Guard headquarters, an "advanced synchrotron light source" in a New York lab. But its main legacy will be change. The stimulus passed just a month after Obama's inauguration, but it may be his signature effort to reshape America — as well as its government. (See pictures of Barack Obama behind the scenes on Inauguration Day.)
"Let's Just Go Build It!"
After Obama's election, Depression scholar Christina Romer delivered a freak-out briefing to his transition team, warning that to avoid a 1930s-style collapse, Washington needed to pump at least $800 billion into the frozen economy — and fast. "We were in a tailspin," recalls Romer, who is about to step down as chair of Obama's Council of Economic Advisers. "I was completely sympathetic to the idea that we shouldn't just dig ditches and fill them in. But saving the economy had to be paramount." Obama's economists argued for tax cuts and income transfers to get cash circulating quickly, emergency aid to states to prevent layoffs of cops and teachers and off-the-shelf highway projects to put people to work. They wanted a textbook Keynesian response to an economy in cardiac arrest: adding money to existing programs via existing formulas or handing it to governors, seniors and first-time home buyers. They weren't keen to reinvent the wheel.
But Obama and Biden also saw a golden opportunity to address priorities; they emphasized shovel-worthy as well as shovel-ready. Biden recalls brainstorming with Obama about an all-in push for a smarter electrical grid that would reduce blackouts, promote renewables and give families more control over their energy diet: "We said, 'God, wouldn't it be wonderful? Why don't we invest $100 billion? Let's just go build it!' "
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It wasn't that easy. Utilities control the grid, and new wires create thorny not-in-my-backyard zoning issues; there wasn't $100 billion worth of remotely shovel-ready grid projects. It's hard to transform on a timeline, and some congressional Democrats were less interested in transforming government than growing it. For instance, after securing $100 billion for traditional education programs, House Appropriations Committee chairman Dave Obey tried to stop any of it from going to Race to the Top, which is unpopular with teachers' unions.
Ultimately, even Obama's speed focused economists agreed that stimulus spending shouldn't dry up in 2010. And some Democrats were serious about investing wisely, not just spending more. So House Speaker Nancy Pelosi insisted on $17 billion for research. House Education and Labor Committee chairman George Miller fought to save Race to the Top. And while the grid didn't get a $100 billion reinvention, it did get $11 billion after decades of neglect, which could shape trillions of dollars in future utility investments. (See 10 big recession surprises.)
It takes time to set up new programs, but now money is flowing to deliver high-speed Internet to rural areas, spread successful quit-smoking programs and design the first high-speed rail link from Tampa to Orlando. And deep in the Energy Department's basement — in a room dubbed the dungeon — a former McKinsey & Co. partner named Matt Rogers has created a government version of Silicon Valley's Sand Hill Road, blasting billions of dollars into clean-energy projects through a slew of oversubscribed grant programs. "The idea is to transform the entire energy sector," Rogers says. "What's exciting is the way it fits all together."
"They Won't All Succeed"
The green industrial revolution begins with gee-whiz companies like A123 Systems of Watertown, Mass. Founded in 2001 by MIT nanotechnology geeks who landed a $100,000 federal grant, A123 grew into a global player in the lithium-ion battery market, with 1,800 employees and five factories in China. It has won $249 million to build two plants in Michigan, where it will help supply the first generation of mass-market electric cars. At least four of A123's suppliers received stimulus money too. The Administration is also financing three of the world's first electric-car plants, including a $529 million loan to help Fisker Automotive reopen a shuttered General Motors factory in Delaware (Biden's home state) to build sedans powered by A123 batteries. Another A123 customer, Navistar, got cash to build electric trucks in Indiana. And since electric vehicles need juice, the stimulus will also boost the number of U.S. battery-charging stations by 3,200%.
"Without government, there's no way we would've done this in the U.S.," A123 chief technology officer Bart Riley told TIME. "But now you're going to see the industry reach critical mass here."
The Recovery Act's clean-energy push is designed not only to reduce our old economy dependence on fossil fuels that broil the planet, blacken the Gulf and strengthen foreign petro-thugs but also to avoid replacing it with a new economy that is just as dependent on foreign countries for technology and manufacturing. Last year, exactly two U.S. factories made advanced batteries for electric vehicles. The stimulus will create 30 new ones, expanding U.S. production capacity from 1% of the global market to 20%, supporting half a million plug-ins and hybrids. The idea is as old as land-grant colleges: to use tax dollars as an engine of innovation. It rejects free-market purism but also the old industrial-policy approach of dumping cash into a few favored firms. Instead, the Recovery Act floods the zone, targeting a variety of energy problems and providing seed money for firms with a variety of potential solutions. The winners must attract private capital to match public dollars — A123 held an IPO to raise the required cash — and after competing for grants, they still must compete in the marketplace. "They won't all succeed," Rogers says. "But some will, and they'll change the world." (Watch TIME's video "Google's Energy Initiatives Director Talks Clean Power.")
The investments extend all along the food chain. A brave new world of electric cars powered by coal plants could be dirtier than the oil-soaked status quo, so the stimulus includes an unheard-of $3.4 billion for clean-coal projects aiming to sequester or reuse carbon. There are also lucrative loan guarantees for constructing the first American nuclear plants in three decades. And after the credit crunch froze financing for green energy, stimulus cash has fueled a comeback, putting the U.S. on track to exceed Obama's goal of doubling renewable power by 2012. The wind industry added a record 10,000 megawatts in 2009. The stimulus is also supporting the nation's largest photovoltaic solar plant, in Florida, and what will be the world's two largest solar thermal plants, in Arizona and California, plus thousands of solar installations on homes and buildings.
The stimulus is helping scores of manufacturers of wind turbines and solar products expand as well, but today's grid can only handle so much wind and solar. A key problem is connecting remote wind farms to population centers, so there are billions of dollars for new transmission lines. Then there is the need to find storage capacity for when it isn't windy or sunny outside. The current grid is like a phone system without voice mail, a just-in-time network where power is wasted if it doesn't reach a user the moment it's generated. That's why the Recovery Act is funding dozens of smart-grid approaches. For instance, A123 is providing truckloads of batteries for a grid-storage project in California and recycled electric-car batteries for a similar effort in Detroit. "If we can show the utilities this stuff works," says Riley, "it will take off on its own."
Today, grid-scale storage, solar energy and many other green technologies are too costly to compete without subsidies. That's why the stimulus launched the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E), a blue-sky fund inspired by the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the incubator for GPS and the M-16 rifle as well as the Internet. Located in an office building a block from the rest of the Energy Department, ARPA-E will finance energy research too risky for private funders, focusing on speculative technologies that might dramatically cut the cost of, say, carbon capture — or not. "We're taking chances, because that's how you put a man on the moon," says director Arun Majumdar, a materials scientist from the University of California, Berkeley. "Our idea is it's O.K. to fail. You think America's pioneers never failed?"
ARPA-E is funding the new pioneers — mad scientists and engineers with ideas for wind turbines based on jet engines, bacteria to convert carbon dioxide into gasoline, and tiny molten-metal batteries to provide cheap high-voltage storage. That last idea is the brainchild of MIT's Donald Sadoway, who already has a prototype fuel cell the size of a shot glass. The stimulus will help him create a kind of reverse aluminum smelter to make prototypes the size of a hockey puck and a pizza box. The ultimate goal is a commercial scale battery the size of a tractor trailer that could power an entire neighborhood. "We need radical breakthroughs, so we need radical experiments," Sadoway says. "These projects send chills down the spine of the carbon world. If a few of them work, [Venezuela's Hugo] Chávez and [Iran's Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad are out of power."
Then again, the easiest way to blow up the energy world would be to stop wasting so much. That's the final link in the chain, a full-throttle push to make energy efficiency a national norm. The Recovery Act is weatherizing 250,000 homes this year. It gave homeowners rebates for energy-efficient appliances, much as the Cash for Clunkers program subsidized fuel-efficient cars. It's retrofitting juice-sucking server farms, factories and power plants; financing research into superefficient lighting, windows and machinery; and funneling billions into state and local efficiency efforts. (See TIME's special report "Obama's Agenda: Get America Back on Track.")
It will also retrofit 3 in 4 federal buildings. The U.S. government is the nation's largest energy consumer, so this will save big money while boosting demand for geothermal heat pumps, LED lighting and other energy-saving products. "We're so huge, we make markets," says Bob Peck, the General Services Administration's public-buildings commissioner. GSA's 93-year-old headquarters, now featuring clunky window air conditioners and wires duct-taped to ceilings, will get energy optimized heating, cooling and lighting systems, glass facades with solar membranes and a green roof; the makeover should cut its energy use 55%. It might even beta-test stimulus-funded windows that harvest sunlight. "We'll be the proving ground for innovation in the building industry," Peck says. "It all starts with renovating the government."
The New Venture Capitalists
The stimulus really is starting to change Washington — and not just the buildings. Every contract and lobbying contact is posted at Recovery.gov, with quarterly data detailing where the money went. A Recovery Board was created to scrutinize every dollar, with help from every major agency's independent watchdog. And Biden has promised state and local officials answers to all stimulus questions within 24 hours. It's a test-drive for a new approach to government: more transparent, more focused on results than compliance, not just bigger but better. Biden himself always saw the Recovery Act as a test — not only of the new Administration but of federal spending itself. He knew high-profile screwups could be fatal, stoking antigovernment anger about bureaucrats and two-car funerals. So he spends hours checking in, buttering up and banging heads to keep the stimulus on track, harassing Cabinet secretaries, governors and mayors about unspent broadband funds, weatherization delays and fishy projects. He has blocked some 260 skate parks, picnic tables and highway beautifications that flunked his what-would-your-mom-think test. "Imagine they could have proved we wasted a billion dollars," Biden says. "Gone, man. Gone!"
So far, despite furor over cash it supposedly funneled to contraception (deleted from the bill) and phantom congressional districts (simply typos), the earmark-free Recovery Act has produced surprisingly few scandals. Prosecutors are investigating a few fraud allegations, and critics have found some goofy expenditures, like $51,500 for water-safety-mascot costumes or a $50,000 arts grant to a kinky-film house. But those are minor warts, given that unprecedented scrutiny. Biden knows it's early — "I ain't saying mission accomplished!" — but he calls waste and fraud "the dogs that haven't barked." (See 25 people to blame for the financial crisis.)
The Recovery Act's deeper reform has been its focus on intense competition for grants instead of everybody-wins formulas, forcing public officials to consider not only whether applicants have submitted the required traffic studies and small-business hiring plans but also whether their projects make sense. Already staffed by top technologists from MIT, Duke and Intel, ARPA-E recruited 4,500 outside experts to winnow 3,700 applications down to 37 first-round grants. "We've taken the best and brightest from the tech world and created a venture fund — except we're looking for returns for the country," Majumdar says. These change agents didn't uproot their lives to fill out forms in triplicate and shovel money by formula. They want to reinvent the economy, not just stimulate it. Sadoway, the MIT battery scientist, is tired of reporting how many jobs he's created in his lab: "If this works, I'll create a million jobs!"
Obama has spent most of his first term trying to clean up messes — in the Gulf of Mexico, Iraq and Afghanistan, on Wall Street and Main Street — but the details in the stimulus plan are his real down payment on change. The question is which changes will last. Will electric cars disappear after the subsidies disappear? Will advanced battery factories migrate back to China? Will bullet trains ever get built? The President wants to extend transformative programs like ARPA-E. But would they be substitutes for the status quo or just additions to tack onto the deficit? And would they survive a Republican Congress?
Polls suggest the actual contents of the Recovery Act are popular. But the idea of the stimulus itself remains toxic — and probably will as long as the recovery remains tepid. "Today, it's judged by jobs," Rogers says of the act. "But in 10 years, it'll be judged by whether it transformed our economy."
(TimeMagazine.com August 26,2010)
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