How effective has the stimulus package related to Franklin County Foreclosures?

It has been a year since the stimulus package has become law and millions have been poured into Franklin County. The answer to the question as to how much of help this has been depends upon who is giving the reply. The Obama team, Democrats and Governor Ed Rendell is focusing on the gains gained from the stimulus in this one year while Republicans are questioning it.

Rep Bill Shuster (Republican/Hollidaysburg) said, “It’s been a year since the Democrats in Congress passed President Obama’s stimulus into law and we continue to see double-digit unemployment, housing foreclosures, and a sluggish economy. The president squandered an opportunity for a small, targeted stimulus program that should have included a mixture of tax cuts and infrastructure investments. What we got was a trillion dollar grab bag of big government social spending and pet projects from the political left. Unspent stimulus funds should be returned to the treasury.”

From the $787 billion less than half has been distributed according to the site that is reporting on the stimulus – Recovery.gov. But the local business concerns and other groups who have got the funds said that dollars did not produce any results. Till the end of last December nearly $26 million has been awarded in grant to various projects in Franklin and Shippensburg. Other projects have been declared but they have not been reported on the website. Local firms have got contracts worth an additional $2 million.

One of the recipients is Industrial Control & Computer Consultants in Waynesboro. It won a contract of $264,035 to set up a system for monitoring patients at Martinsburg VA hospital. Dave McCarney of the Industrial Control said, “This is the worst recession we have seen. We normally deal with the machine tool industry. That’s been negatively impacted.” Mc Carney commented that because of the contract they would be able to retain one or maybe two employees.

Another unit – said that sans the stimulus dollars the apartment unit at Southgate Shopping Center would not be possible. The stimulus that included a tax credit exchange plan provided $4 million for the plan according the manager of the project Frank Lucician.

He said, “The fact that exchange dollars were there and the Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency acted so quickly is why we’re able to get this under construction. There are definitely federal stimulus dollars that made this deal feasible. Once we’re finished we will have affordable units. It’s fair to say were it not for stimulus dollars, this may not have happened.”

Original Post: How effective has the stimulus package related to foreclosure problems in Franklin County?