There's nothing wrong with that. The cities 'buying' the stimulus are using the money for it's intended purpose, and since they are pooling it, the projects are bigger in size and employ more people for longer. No stimulus money is being lost, and it's all still being spent as intended.

I don't see any issues with this, especially since the majority of cities selling it are small cities that couldn't find good use for $500,000 in infrastructure projects, thus allowing the cities that do need it to get even more bang for their buck.

There is more than one issue with this:

1. What the hell kind of distribution is this to begin with? The money was supposed to go to projects which were "stimulating" the economy; now we find out it's being distributed very haphazardly.

2. If the bigger cities had money available in the general funds, why wasn't that used to build the projects that stimulate the economy?

3. What are these small cities that had no "shovel-ready" projects going to use the funds for?

First off, the cities without shovel-ready projects get no stimulus funds. They get cash, cash which they can use for whatever they like. It's essentially extra money, money from outside the stimulus that these cities get which they wouldn't otherwise have. They can use that money for any shovel ready projects they do have, and then use the rest to pay salaries, lower taxes, or whatever else they wish to do within their given city.

Secondly, the cities buying the stimulus money that had money available in general funds simply may not have had enough available. It's one thing to have $300,000, it's another to have $1,000,000. Maybe they had a project they wanted to do, but simply couldn't afford or were saving up for. Now they get to do it quicker.

The thing to realize here is that all the stimulus funds will be used as they were supposed to. They allocated each city $500,000, but each city had to PROVE that they had enough projects to warrant that money. The cities that couldn't do so then were allowed to SELL that money to another city, a city that COULD use the money in the fashion needed.

This actually takes the $220 million they wanted to go toward projects, and spends it all. Then it also adds a few million to smaller cities, money they wouldn't have had otherwise, money that's in addition to the stimulus.

I still am failing to see the issue here, I think you're missing the point that all these projects still had to be justified, and that each city had to prove they could use the funds, if they couldn't, they sold it to those who could. It all gets used, why are you complaining?