House Stimulus Bill -- State Department follies

Continuing with the analysis of the House Stimulus Bill, HR 1, it is interesting to look at particular department appropriations to see how vague and unconstrained the spending is. For example, Title XI of the Act provides $276 million to the State Department"Capital Investment Fund"in the following language:

"For an additional amount for ‘Capital Investment Fund’, $276,000,000, of which up to $120,000,000 shall be available for the design and construction of a backup information management facility in the United States to support mission-critical operations and projects, and up to $98,527,000 shall be available to carry out the Department of State’s responsibilities under the Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative: Provided, That the Secretary of State shall submit to the Committees on Appropriations of the House of Representatives and the Senate within 90 days of enactment of this Act a detailed spending plan for funds appropriated under this heading."

Note that the House bill gives the State Department this money without any understanding of where it will be spent,but simply requires State to provide a list of projects within 90 days after the adoption of the legislation.

$120 million it is provided for construction of a backup data processing center. First, there is no way that such a data center is going to be constructed within the time necessary to provide stimulus to the economy (unless the State Department already has detailed blueprints on the drawing board).

Secondly, this is supposedly for mission-critical operations and projects, but there is no showing that the State Department itself has to construct and own this facility. The Department of Defense and other intelligence agencies contract out all sorts of intelligence-related activities. Operation of a data center would presumably be something that companies like IBM or EDS could do quite well and much more efficiently than a government agency.