Drive around the Tri-State and you’ll see the green and orange signs all over, near Wilmington, at the Lockland split, in West Chester, and along other roads and interstates.
The signs say "Putting America to Work", an orange rectangle over a biger green road sign that says “Project Funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act”.
That’s the federal government's stimulus program, a big push to put people to work. The theory is that your tax dollars pay for roads and bridges we need anyway, creating jobs all over the country. The money flows from Washington D.C. to the states to administer the projects.
But critics say at least some of that money is going to waste; and they point to the signs as proof.
Republican Ohio Senator Gary Cates sits on the Senate Highway and Transportation Committee. He says, "It's a complete waste of money. Unnecessary."
But Ohio's Deputy Director of Transportation, Scott Varner, disagrees. He says, "These signs are an important tool to let people know where their dollars are being invested."
Cates says the cost is too high. "$3,000 for that sign to be up there. $3,000. You multiply that around the state, we're talking about a million dollars."
ODOT'S Varner disputes that cost. Materials run $300; additional labor costs vary. Either way he says: "I think it's important to put some perspective on the dollar amount. ODOT is investing and overseeing more than $1.1 billion in stimulus funds that been allocated to Ohio so far. $1.1 billion."
"I don't care how they minimize it,” says Cates. “It's still wasting money."
Varner says to tell that to the workers who got or kept their jobs at sign-making companies, who then went out and spent money, creating jobs for fast food servers and others. He says there’s no measuring the indirect, spinoff jobs cascading through the economy.
Not all taxpayers are buying that argument. Bradley Fischer lives in the shadow of one of those signs, in Green County, Ohio. He says, "That's a lot of money for a sign. Anyway really stupid idea. I'd prefer to see the money put to better use than that, or give it back to me, the taxpayer."
Indeed, four states have chosen not to post signs. Varner says Ohio chose to do so because "At the very beginning we made a commitment to be very transparent and acountable as to where stimulus funds were being invested."
Cates calls that baloney. "The only thing they're being transparent with is how they waste money… It would be more appropriate instead of putting up they're putting America to work, the sign ought to say they're putting America in debt!"
