Omaha is by far the biggest city in Nebraska is in Douglas County. South of Douglas is Sarpy County, one of the fastest growing counties in Nebraska.
But it looks like when it comes to economic stimuls road construction, that doesn't matter much, as the Omaha World-Herald tells us:
Of the first $77 million in stimulus highway dollars allocated by the state, not a dollar went for a project in Douglas or Sarpy County.
Those numbers raised some eyebrows in the metro area and caused the U.S. Conference of Mayors to designate Omaha as one of the nation's most short-changed big cities when it comes to how states dole out federal stimulus cash for roads.
Des Moines was not included in the mayors' report, but an Associated Press analysis similarly indicated much of the stimulus road work in Iowa is happening in areas far from the state's population centers.
The paper goes on to say that Omaha didn't have any "shovel-ready" projects ready to roll.
But Douglas and Sarpy counties have more roads. Nothing shovel ready?
I'm sure we'll be hearing similar stories from other states.
But New Jersey and New York has a leg up on Omaha--there hasn't been much stimulus spending there either. As Fox News reported yesterday, the Garden State has spent just 3 percent of its stimulus funds--and five percent of that amount has gone into stimulus "campaign signs" such as the ubiquitous ones in Chicago's northern suburbs.
Over in New York, the soon-to-be fourth most populous state has spent $1 million of its stimulus funds on quasi-Obama ads.
It's all in the video, along with a good dose of common sense from House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-VA).
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