At a meeting of the National Governors Association (NGA) in Philadelphia, President-Elect Barack Obama asked the nation's governors to help craft a plan to implement his two-year “Economic Recovery Plan” that would create 2.5 million jobs repairing the country's infrastructure, putting money into public works, and investing in alternative energy programs.
“Change is not going to come from Washington alone,” Obama said. “If we're listening to the governors, then the money that we spend will be well spent.”
Twenty states have cut $7.6 billion from their budgets for the 2009 fiscal year, and 30 states have identified additional shortfalls of more than $30 billion, according to the NGA, which has outlined $126 billion of “potential recovery programs.” The NGA recovery program includes: $57 billion for infrastructure, of which $27 billion would be allocated for highway and transit projects; $6 billion in wastewater and drinking water projects; and nearly $5 billion in affordable housing.
