Stimulating the Economy

As you may know, the President recently launched a new website – Recovery.gov – that allows the public to track how our taxpayer dollars are being spent under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (also known as the stimulus).

Recovery.gov reflects the President’s commitment to bring a new level of transparency and openness to government as we work to strengthen our economy. That is a commitment I share for our Department – and the reason we’ve created www.dhs.gov/recovery.

The stimulus provides more than $3 billion in new homeland security funding. This funding will be used to improve security at our borders, rebuild our Coast Guard fleet, expand technology, strengthen rail and transit security, and enhance emergency preparedness and response. It will also create thousands of new jobs.

Let me give you a concrete example:

On Thursday, the Transportation Security Administration announced that it will be using $1 billion in stimulus funds to deploy checked baggage and checkpoint explosive detection systems at airports across the country.

This technology will enhance our ability to screen passengers and their bags for bombs and IEDs – including liquid explosives – while improving security and convenience. At the same time, it will create more than 3,000 new jobs associated with the construction and deployment of these systems.

This is precisely the purpose of the stimulus – to protect the country, stimulate the economy, and keep people working.

More projects are in the pipeline and will be coming soon. I invite you to keep track of our progress at www.dhs.gov/recovery.

Janet Napolitano