When several Republican governors questioned whether their states should receive federal stimulus funds as part of the 2009 bill, they were derided as mean-spirited, partisan, and in the opinion of House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn, racist. Their reason for turning down this supposed "free money" was that much of it was never free in the first place, but restricted by a number of mandates, which bound recipients to additional and ongoing expenditures. Seemingly a world away, in Los Angeles' City Hall, another federal stimulus tale, more than three decades in the making, is coming to a controversial conclusion. Like all good Hollywood stories, this one is fraught with irony, using the mundane (in this case, concrete) to make some prophetic points about our policies and politics. It seemed like a good idea back during the recession in 1974. Congress allocated several million dollars in block grants and jobs stimulus funds to the City of Los Angeles, which designated the funds to the building and repairing of sidewalks. With over 10,000 miles of sidewalks in the city, there were certainly enough "shovel-ready projects" to go around.
