Blueprint America correspondent Rick Karr talks with The Take Away on public radio about the operating budget shortfall common to most of America’s mass transit systems, and if Congress’ stimulus plan will be able to help.

A look at America's top mass transit systems - from budget deficits to finding new revenue sources to how agencies will manage both. Also, find out how each agency plans to use federal funds from the economic stimulus.

President Barack Obama's stimulus money is about to be distributed, but will it be spent in the way it is intended? One alarming example: Mass transit. Cities and states, strapped for money, are cutting back on mass transit even as it becomes more popular with Americans. At the same time, President Obama is calling for increased mass transit as a necessary step toward energy independence. Blueprint America -- with NOW on PBS -- reports from North Carolina to see what the future holds for the country's mass transit systems in these financial times.

What has often been referenced as a new New Deal, similar to initiatives instituted during the Great Depression, the following is a breakdown of federal funds from Congress' economic stimulus devoted to projects or spending that is related to or will affect infrastructure in the U.S.

What is almost gone from the stimulus discussion now is infrastructure. After months of talk of a new New Deal and putting people back to work with public works spending while, at the same time, building a new America, the focus of the stimulus bill has been shifted to tax breaks for home builders, new-car buyers and manufacturers, spending cuts for state governments, and a limit to executive bonus pay.

The Senate agreed on a scaled-down economic stimulus bill on Friday when three Republicans said they would back the reworked legislation.

President Barack Obama has brought change to Washington, D.C. In this newly declared post-partisan era of politics, there is growing bipartisan opposition to the President’s economic stimulus package.

As Washington considers a nearly $1 trillion economic stimulus bill to combat an increasing recession, with billions going to public works projects, governments worldwide will, at the same time, spend as much as $1.5 trillion annually for the next 20 years to make up for a lack of similar spending on infrastructure in years past.

As Americans have slashed consumer spending, congressional Democrats want to buy American with stimulus spending.

In order to have an impact on the American Recovery and Reinvestment bill, the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) released its 2009 Report Card for America's Infrastructure. Still, as the bill goes through Congress, little has been done to ensure that proper oversight will be applied to the funds devoted to spending.

America lost 524,000 jobs in December. The unemployment rate, at the same time, is at a 16-year-high of 7.2 percent, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported. There are currently 11.1 million unemployed throughout the country, which is nearly double the number out of work at the start of the economic recession a year ago. President Barack Obama has promised to sustain Americans in these hard times with an $825 billion economic stimulus package – the American Recovery and Reinvestment Bill of 2009.