In Five Points the Government MUST Consider Before Doling Out Billions to the Construction Industry construction expert Barry LePatner has this to say:
Economic stimulus plan funds will soon be distributed to projects and programs across the nation, and without a doubt opinions on the matter are mixed. One definite high note is that the legislation—which includes around $48 billion in infrastructure transportation spending on everything from a high-speed rail service to highway projects to public transportation and intercity rail projects—finally recognizes that our nation's infrastructure is crumbling around us.Excerpted from The American Surveyor.
But according to construction attorney Barry LePatner, the government had better look before it leaps. Why? Because the legislation authorizing the distribution of this massive funding program assumes that the dollars spent on these projects will be efficiently utilized by a construction industry that is just as broken as the infrastructure it's charged with building and repairing.
"We've already seen what can happen when the government pumps money into broken industries without properly monitoring how it's used: billions of taxpayer dollars are wasted," says LePatner, coauthor of Structural & Foundation Failures and author of Broken Buildings, Busted Budgets: How to Fix America's Trillion-Dollar Construction Industry.
