One of the hardest-fought battles of the stimulus saga was whether to fund school repairs. Obama and House Democrats wanted to, citing the fact that America’s schools are in miserable shape–one in five children are taking classes in trailers, many of which are carcinogenic–and that it would create tons of jobs.
Susan Collins, who was the Queen of Capitol Hill last week and defined many key elements of the final bill, didn’t care for it for reasons that we never quite grasped.
The final result lies in the middle ground: there are federal funds that can be used for school construction but nothing specifically designated for the purpose. This is a victory though, says Andrew Goldberg, chief lobbyist for the American Institute of Architects, who was deeply involved in the fight.
“This is the first time since the New Deal that federal government has put money into school buildings,” he says. “The language in the bill is pretty broad. You can’t build new schools, but you can do expansions, repair work and modernization.”
The House originally included $14 billion for the purpose, and the Senate bumped that to $16 billion before zeroing the line out in the Collins-Nelson compromise version. After some last-minute wrangling on Wednesday the final settlement was reached.
“We’d like guaranteed funds,” says Goldberg. “But this is much better than zero.”
