How can Obama's stimulus package affect the South Bend region's budget woes?

As major deficits plague many local governments in the Greater South Bend region, what aspects of Obama's stimulus plan will help get us back on our feet? Most of the talk has been focused lately on the infrastructure improvements, but will that really help us here in South Bend?

Most of the city and county roads in our region are already paid for by the federal government. This comes about in either fully-funded or matching road grants. This means that any more infrastructure money will only serve the purpose of repairing more roads without actually freeing up any money for the municipality to fund other essential services such as police and fire protection, libraries, county health services, jails, justice system, etc.

There is one provision in Obama's rescue proposal that does not, however, get too much media attention: saving the jobs of the nation's police officers. This will be of great benefit to communities all over the country. As The Journal talked about in another article, most local government's budgets consist of over 80% police and fire protection. Most law enforcement jobs are paid directly out of the coffers of the city's or county's general fund as opposed to state or federal grant money.

This could result in keeping our police officers -- a vital taxpayer funded service -- while at the same time freeing up some much needed revenue for local goverments to pay down their huge deficits. As it stands now, governments in the Greater South Bend region are looking at cutting 400 to 500 government jobs and the possibilty of a 1% income tax increase.