Issue Brief #252
In February, Congress passed a $787 billion stimulus package—the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA)—which included substantial new funding for infrastructure investment. From a macroeconomic perspective, this is good news: infrastructure spending as economic stimulus provides a high economic “bang-for-the-buck” (that is, extra output and employment created through each dollar increase in the federal deficit) and stands near the top of the list of proposals to spur economic recovery.1 The largest chunk of this investment focuses on transportation infrastructure, which is likely to provide even more bang-for-the-buck than generic infrastructure investment.