New Stimulus Orders Stabilize Bus Industry

MATT APUZZO

WASHINGTON (AP) — Washington is paying hundreds of millions of dollars under President Barack Obama's economic stimulus plan to build new, cleaner-burning buses, but that won't necessarily result in a burst of job openings soon at major manufacturers or suppliers.

The bus money, like many other programs in the $787 billion stimulus plan, is having the less glamorous and harder-to-quantify effect of keeping workers employed, providing a slight buffer from the recession to some in the auto industry.

At the White House, where saving jobs always was as much a priority as creating jobs, the bus industry is a success story. But it also shows how hard it is to account for that success, especially in an industry that keeps shedding jobs despite the stimulus. ...