By Felix Rohatyn and Everett Ehrlich

The conventional wisdom both in Washington and on Wall Street is that the stimulus package passed last spring has been slow to feed through into spending, leaving the economy to founder in the interim.

But the reality is more complex. Some of the stimulus has been slow to take effect, particularly the part related to the nation's infrastructure. But another component -- fiscal assistance to the states -- has raced through the policy apparatus faster than might have been expected.

It is tempting to blame the failure to spend infrastructure funds expeditiously on the inherent nature of "big ticket" projects. The reality is that it is a failure of policy. As we have said on these and other pages, our federal policies treat infrastructure as a way to give states and localities resources to pay for projects that meet local, political objectives rather than national, economic ones.

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Posted by rjorr at July 29, 2009 2:06 PM