Bob Wibel writes an interesting response to an article from Thomas Freedman in the New York Times concerning President Obama's proposed stimulus package for infrastructure projects.
Bob has been a vocal champion for streamlining the regulatory process. through the FIATECH Streamlining /Alliance Project. You need to read the details in his interesting article in ENR News on the need to upgrade our state and local government processes of regulatory reviews of construction plans. It is estimated that 80% of the current process has not changed since the 1950s.
He argues that before we begin spending that "shovel ready" money, we consider an effort to upgrade our regulatory processes and build out the technology base to support the visibility of the rules and regulations bogging down the permit process.
He makes the point that these efficiency changes could save the public and private sectors tens of billions of dollars annually. He also makes the case for accelerating the revenue base for the local government tax base.
Now that seems like a good investment of money - saving tens of billions of dollars has a real nice ring to it.